Old Sins
by Padfoot Lives
Summary: Broken after the war, Harry left. Now, two years later, he’s finally found the strength to return, only to discover that old sins have long shadows.
1. Homecoming

**Disclaimer:** I don't, of course, own any of this. JK Rowling/Warner Brothers do. I do own _two_ characters, though (you'll know who).

**Summary:** Broken after the war, Harry left. Now, two years later, he's finally found the strength to return, only to discover that old sins have long shadows and some very crucial things have changed…

**Author's Note (A/N):** I know I have to apologize for "Promise", but my only excuse is that I soon discovered it worked better as a one-shot than as a full story. This one _will_ be a full story – assuming, of course, you, my dear readers, _want_ it to continue. If so, I will update it at least once a week (unless some crisis occurs… heaven forbid!).

As always, I've made a token effort to keep the characters true to themselves. I hope you guys enjoy this.

Please review :-)

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**Old Sins**

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**Chapter One: _Homecoming_**

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As the old, ramshackle house loomed ahead, he paused for a moment, beside the shrubs behind which he'd Apparated, and stared at it. Guilt, shame, trepidation and a tiny flicker of happiness fought for dominance inside him. God, it was so good to see it again. He'd thought of the Burrow so often these past two years. But those other, not-so-nice feelings didn't go away.

He had behaved like a cad, like an ungrateful thickhead, disappearing the way he did with only a single 'goodbye, don't worry' note. He didn't regret the actual act of going away—he knew, now, that he had needed it. That the war had hurt and damaged him, and he needed to get away to fix himself before he could inflict his presence on his friends again. The nightmares and effects weren't gone, but he had grown up a bit. He knew he was a better person—man?—now than he had been when he'd left. They deserved the better him, after the way they'd all fought, sacrificed and loved for him. After the way some of them had _died_ for him. He knew it was stupid, and that they probably resented or hated him for leaving, but he hadn't been able to bear the thought of their pity or of making them sacrifice more for him in the aftermath.

Better to disappear until the scars had faded.

With the exception of Percy, the Weasley family, thank heavens, had survived the war. So he knew that right now, inside that house, they would all be there, probably celebrating quite happily, along with the usual motley host of friends. He had chosen Christmas Eve, in particular, because he'd known they would _all_ be there.

Harry Potter took a deep breath, mustered up the courage he had once been famous for—that eternal Gryffindor nerve, he thought with a faint smile—and made his way towards the window-lit house.

He was no less than ten feet away from the kitchen door when a loud explosion shook the very foundations of the house itself.

"FRED—GEORGE—WHAT HAVE I TOLD YOU ABOUT THOSE STUPID TRICKS?" a loud, angry and achingly familiar voice screeched. "YOU COULD HAVE DONE THAT BOY A SERIOUS INJURY, YOU MAD LUNATICS!"

Mrs. Weasley's shouts made Harry stop and grin. He'd even missed that.

He went cautiously up to the back door, heart thumping a little quicker in his chest, and knocked tentatively at it.

Silence fell inside the house, laughter and shouting dying away.

"Aren't we all here?" Ginny's voice asked—Harry wasn't surprised to register he felt no pang upon hearing it, just a sense of amusement, because he was fond of her, but he had never really loved her. In hindsight, it was actually a bit embarrassing, thinking of the bout of hormones he'd given in to for that brief time. "Who could that be?"

"Who is it?" Mrs. Weasley asked from right beside the door.

Harry swallowed. "Harry Potter."

If it was possible, the silence deepened even further, and Harry could feel their very palpable shock. Then Mrs. Weasley snapped: "Are you trying to be funny? Are you from the _Daily Prophet_? What do you want, another story about the post-war heroes and the happy family?"

"Go away," another voice said aggressively: Tonks'. Harry grinned in spite of himself. "Before I hex you into oblivion!"

"I'd like to see you try, Tonks," said Harry, smiling. "It really _is_ me. Go on, open the door and you'll see." He caught sight of a familiar freckly face peering through the window beside the door, and grinned, a warmth and pleasure flooding through him. "How're you, Ron?"

"Harry!" Ron yelped delightedly. "It _is_ you!"

"Don't you _dare_ touch that door, young man," Mrs. Weasley shouted, oblivious to Mr. Weasley's mild remonstrations. "We have to be _sure_."

"If you're Harry," said Lupin's voice cautiously, "Tell me what form your Patronus takes."

"A stag!" a very small voice piped up before Harry could speak.

He blinked; it was completely unfamiliar.

There was a ripple of laughter inside the kitchen, and then Mrs. Weasley said in rather indulgent exasperation: "Well, thank you, David dear, but that negates the purpose of _that_ exercise, doesn't it? Can anyone think of another question?"

"What do you smell when you're near Amortentia?" Lupin asked.

Harry sighed. "Polished broomstick, treacle tart, and—er—" he fumbled here, rather embarrassed and not wanting to reveal what the third item was (he had long since grown out of the Ginny-flowery-smell), and gestured helplessly at Ron, who was still squinting at him through the frost-covered window.

Fortunately, Ron did not prove usually obtuse on this occasion, and grinned happily. "Yes, it's him!" he yelled.

"Why, what did he say?" demanded one of the twins, avidly.

"None of your business," said Ron promptly. "Mum, can you open the door now? It must be bloody freezing out there!"

Mrs. Weasley cautiously opened the door, and when she saw Harry, Polyjuice Potion notwithstanding, she seemed finally convinced it was him. She burst into tears and threw herself at him, enveloping him in a smothering, motherly hug. Harry choked and grinned simultaneously, finally certain he was home. "Oh, Harry, dear!" she cried. "We _have_ missed you!"

"Seriously, mate," said Ron, grabbing him next and beaming from ear to ear. "Where've you _been_?"

Harry grabbed Ron and hugged him hard, reminded all over again of how much he had missed his stupidly thick remarks and good humor and constant companionship in the two years he had been gone. Warmth and happiness spread through him, tinged only with an elusive sadness and regret, but he ignored this and focused on the fire roaring in the kitchen and the feel of being back here again.

After that, it was a blur of one heart-wrenchingly familiar face to another: Lupin, who caught him in a neck-breaking one-armed hug; Tonks, who cast herself upon his chest; Ginny and Neville, who hugged him; Fred and George, who grinned delightedly at him and shook his hand enthusiastically; Fleur, who kissed him on both cheeks; Bill, Kingsley and Moody, who shook his hand as well; and Luna, who gave him a hug and airy kiss on the forehead, looking as batty as ever (though happy; Harry assumed she was still with Ron, who also looked very happy, but as though he had, in fact, missed his best friend sorely).

Harry greeted Hagrid last. His favorite half-giant just barely fit into the kitchen and lifted him right into the air, leaking tears of joy all over Mrs. Weasley's pudding (but no one seemed to notice). He had just detached himself from Hagrid, when he caught sight of a bandy-legged ginger cat.

His muscles tensed and his heart squeezed a bit as Crookshanks rubbed himself against his legs, purring happily, before marching off.

"Harry, it's very good to have you back," said Luna bluntly, smiling vaguely at him. "Things will be much brighter here now. I know you must have thought we would all be angry, but we're not. We understand why you left, you see. I would have gone myself, to find Crumple-Horned Snorklelacks, but Ronald is quite unable to cope without me…"

Harry laughed. Ron turned bright red. Sobering, Harry looked around at them all. "I didn't think you'd be glad to see me," he admitted honestly. "And—I—I'm sorry I left the way I did. You all deserved better than that."

"Mate, we understand," Ron said earnestly. "Her—I mean, it was explained to us. We're just really glad you came back."

"Wonderful Christmas present," said Mrs. Weasley, who was still sniffling on Lupin's shoulder (why did she never sniffle on Mr. Weasley's shoulder, Harry wondered?). "And you're just in time for dinner, too, Harry dear! I must say," she added more sternly, "You look—"

"_Underfed_," the entire room chorused, grinning, and Harry laughed again.

How _could_ he have stayed away from all these people, his family, for so long? How had he coped without his friends?

Quite suddenly, as Ginny moved out of the way to sit back down at the dining table (massively enlarged, he noted), Harry noticed two people in the room that he hadn't seen before. Though 'people' hardly seemed an apt word for them, considering both were less than three years old (one of which was practically a baby still).

They were sitting together in a playpen, watching him with wide-eyed innocence and interest. One, the older, was a girl, and Harry knew instantly, from her silvery hair and blue eyes, that this had to be the child Fleur was about to deliver when he'd left. She was probably two years old now. The other, a boy, was a mystery: he was younger—about a year old, Harry judged inexpertly and vaguely, and possibly had only just learnt to walk and talk a bit—and he was absolutely adorable, with dark hair and large brown eyes that were oddly familiar.

"Er…" said Harry, suddenly aware that everyone in the room had gone silent again and was watching him, almost nervously, as if they expected a reaction of some sort. "Those are really cute kids. Are they both Bill and Fleur's?" Seemed a bit unlikely, if his math worked out.

"No, no," said Fleur, smiling and stroking the long silver-blond hair of the girl, "Zis one is ours—'er name is Belle—but zis 'uzzer one—" she rumpled the soft dark hair of the boy; "'E is not ours; 'is name is David, and 'e is…"

"Mine," a new voice interrupted.

The nervous silence in the room trebled.

Very slowly, rooted to the spot, Harry turned. _Don't react_, he begged himself. _Don't start crying or doing something stupid like that. Just look at her and hug her and greet her like you did everyone else. There's nothing different about her; it's just Hermione, your other best friend, you've known her for nine years, come on, Harry, don't be a prat now…_

But, of course, he was wrong. She _was_ different, in every way possible. He'd known it since that fateful day during the Horcrux search, had probably known it for years without realizing it. He _couldn't_ treat her like everyone else…

"I found the currant cake, Mrs. Weasley," she said, "It's in the pantry, just as you told me it would be." She shifted her brown eyes—with a jolt of recognition and shock, he realized why David's eyes were so familiar—back to Harry, and for the first time in his life, he realized he couldn't read the expression in them. They were completely blank to him.

But she smiled faintly, though with more restraint than she might otherwise have had. He couldn't help remembering how she used to greet him, running up to him and flinging her arms around him.

"Hi, Harry," she said, still smiling at him. "I'm glad you're back."

It took him a moment to find his voice. She looked exactly the same, just perhaps a little… curvier... and if she'd had a baby, that was only to be expected. Her brown hair had been tamed a little, and fell around her shoulders, and she was dressed in jeans and a fitted white sweater. She looked so _normal_ that there was no reason why it ought to bring a lump to his throat. She looked so… Hermione.

He'd always thought she was pretty, but, knowing her as well as he did, he knew she was more. She was, and would always be, beautiful to him.

"Hi, Hermione," he finally got out. "Good to see you."

She came towards him, possibly as aware of their audience as he was—_oh my God, what are they going to think, seeing us acting so weird_, he thought desperately—and gave him a quick hug. He barely had time to put his arms around her, before she pulled away again and smiled at the others.

"So what about dinner?" she said brightly.

Harry tried to read the others' expressions. What did they think, he thought rather worriedly? Because, apart from Ron and Luna—and maybe Ginny—none of them knew about… they weren't stupid, Lupin and Tonks and Moody and Molly. Surely they must have notice the restraint and awkwardness between two once close and affectionate friends? Maybe—he devoutly hoped—they would put it down to the fact that Hermione must be a bit sore with him for leaving.

That reminded him… how angry _was_ she? He couldn't read her expression, as she walked past him, but he'd caught a glimpse of hurt in her eyes when he'd faced her. He regretted hurting her. He'd never wanted that. But was she furious with him? Did she forgive him, as the others had?

He wished he could ask her, but he couldn't… not now.

_It looks like the stuff you do always comes back to bite you_, he thought with a hint of bitterness. What was that Muggle phrase? 'Old sins have long shadows'. They always had consequences.

Well, here he was. Facing those consequences, one of which, most horribly, seemed to mean he'd lost the easy comfort and trust of one of his best friends. At least she was making an effort to act normally and was being nice to him. She even seemed to be happy, in her own way, to see him. At least he still had that. And he had the others, of course. They'd given him a wonderful homecoming, and he was grateful to them all for it.

As they all moved towards the dining table, to take their places, a diversion came in the form of David's young voice:

"I want to meet Hawwy!"

Correctly interpreting that this mysterious person was himself, Harry went obligingly to the crib. David was toddling around it alone now; Belle was sitting in a high-chair at the table. Harry approached the baby and looked down at him. The shock and… and something else, something painful that he couldn't define… came back. Hermione had a _baby._

_Merlin's beard_. He felt a little weak as it really hit him._ Hermione has a baby._

He was surprised at his first thought 'I want to hate this kid', and ashamed of it. Yet as the little boy reached towards him, he didn't hate him. Even if, for some reason he couldn't fathom, he wanted not to like David, he did. There was something about his easy smile and innocent, mischievous eyes that reminded him of Sirius, or what his father might have been like. No one could _not_ like him.

"Hi," he said. "I'm Harry."

"You can pick him up," said Ginny with a grin, watching him—along with everyone else, apparently—very closely. They seemed to think he would stab the baby with his wand or something. "He might drool over you for fun, Fred and George taught him that, but Hermione's got a handy anti-drool spell."

"Charming," said Harry dryly, rolling his eyes at a grinning Fred and George. "Leave the kid alone, would you? He's too young to be corrupted by you two!"

"Cowwupted," said David at once.

Harry was very thankful he hadn't used more colorful language. "Smart baby," he remarked.

"Well, look at his mother," said Tonks with a grin. "His dad's not too thick, either. Well, not excessively, anyway. Has his smart moments now and then, but he can be abysmally slow when you least expect it… no offence, Hermione…"

"Tonks," Lupin frowned at her.

"I keep threatening to jinx Fred and George," said Hermione, reaching across Harry to pick David up; he laughed happily and snuggled against his mother's neck. "But it seems to have been to no avail. Come on, David. It's time for dinner, and you know what I'll do to your fingers if you throw meatballs at Uncle Ron again."

"Uncw Ron thwew mee'ball at me fwirst."

Ron had the grace to look ashamed of himself, and Hermione sighed in exasperation. "I sometimes wonder who the baby is, Ron," she said.

The others laughed, and in spite of himself, Harry felt himself grin a little. He took a seat next to Ron, and was startled when, despite the empty chair beside him, Hermione went across and sat down next to Neville, putting David down on her lap. Mrs. Weasley began to dole out the food, and cheerful conversation carried on for an hour or so.

Harry felt Mrs. Weasley's cooking and warm bottles of Butterbeer begin to thaw the cold sadness that had been wrapped around his heart for so long. But it didn't thaw it completely. It was still there, somewhere, and he didn't know why.

"So where have you been, Harry?" Ron asked him.

The others stopped talking to listen, and he explained: "I went all over the place, really. Never stayed anywhere for long. Leeds and Nottingham and Yorkshire and Dublin and even as far as Bulgaria. I managed to catch a few of Krum's matches while I was there. He saw me and gave me his winning Snitch once; that was it for my anonymity, of course."

"I'm surprised no one had recognized you before," Lupin commented, "You still appear in the papers at least once a week, you know. 'Where is Harry Potter?'. 'Britain Mourns Absence of Chosen One'."

Harry flushed. "Yeah, well. I'd hoped it would have died down by now."

"People are very grateful, Harry," Luna told him. "And they like celebrities as well, you know."

"So what made you decide to come back now?" Fred inquired.

He shrugged. "I don't really know, to be very honest. I just felt… I don't know… it was like I woke up one morning and I couldn't take it anymore, and I just came back. You know? Something brought me back, and I can't put my finger on it, but I'm glad. Anyway," he went on hastily, eager to turn the subject off himself, "What's been going on here?"

"Well, Scrimgeour's put me in charge of a new Werewolf Alliance committee in the Ministry," said Lupin. "I never thought I'd work in the government, and to be honest, it's not very interesting, but I get posted to Hogwarts a good deal, and now that Tonks and I are married, I thought a stable job would be a good idea. Tonks is still an Auror; Kingsley's been moved up to Head of the Auror Office, and Moody's the new Muggle Prime Minister's Secretary."

"Frighten him half to death every day too," said Moody with relish. "Bloody fool of a man, that one."

"The Joke Shop's still flourishing," said George gleefully, "And Ginny's working for Bill in curse-breaking at Gringotts' now."

"You still with the Chudley Cannons?" Harry asked Ron.

"Official Keeper now," said Ron proudly. "Luna's… er… our official commentator." He caught Harry's eye and they both looked away hastily before one of them laughed. Harry caught Hermione's eye; she was also trying not to laugh, and for a brief instant, it was as if things were exactly as they'd always been.

Then Hermione hastily looked away. Harry swallowed his disappointment and said, "What about you, Hermione?"

"I have a part-time job," she said, "As assistant Transfiguration teacher at Hogwarts. McGonagall asked me, and I said yes. Three days a week. David stays here during those times, with Mrs. Weasley. She takes care of Belle during the day anyway, so it's good. I think she misses having children at home to fuss over," she added, smiling at Mrs. Weasley.

Molly sighed. "They grew up too fast, and now _none_ of them live here any longer!"

"You're still living at Number 12, Grimmauld Place, then?" Harry asked Ron happily, as Crookshanks crawled into his lap and curled up there, purring. He'd been hoping to have Ron and Luna there with him. Sirius's house, though much brighter now, could get lonely.

"Yeah, me, Luna and Hermione and David are all there still," said Ron. "You didn't think we'd abandon your house, did you, just because You-Know-Who is gone? We kept your room clean and just as you left it all this time, too."

"You mean _Dobby_ kept it clean," said Hermione sternly.

"We _pay _him, Hermione, and he gets a holiday each month! You've got to stop telling him not to work—you know he almost has a heart attack every time you do!"

Hermione sniffed and paid undue attention to feeding David. Harry felt a pang; she hadn't changed very much at all. It seemed that the only thing that had really changed, apart from the fact that she was a mother, was their relationship, his and hers. He missed her. _There_. He'd admitted it. To himself, yes, but there was a start. He _had_ missed her and he missed what they'd once had. He'd been an idiot to mess it all up.

Across from him, Harry saw Neville slip David a piece of cake, and, with a shy grin, David batted Neville across the cheek, as if to say thank you. Hermione, who hadn't missed this, shook her head reprovingly but smiled at Neville nonetheless.

Harry felt positively faint. Was Hermione with _Neville_ now?

For the first time, he fully realized that he couldn't pick up where he'd left off. Things had changed, and he didn't know why that left him with a sad, sinking feeling in his gut.

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**To Be Continued.**

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	2. Pieces

**Disclaimer: **I don't, of course, own any of this. JK Rowling/Warner Brothers do. I do own David and Belle, though.

**Summary: **Broken after the war, Harry left. Now, two years later, he's finally found the strength to return, only to discover that old sins have long shadows and some very crucial things have changed…

**A/N: **Thanks for the reviews so far—you guys are fantastic! Don't stop now, though. :-)

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**Old Sins**

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**Chapter Two: _Pieces_**

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The front door of Number 12, Grimmauld Place, closed behind them. Hermione went straight upstairs to put David to bed—they weren't staying at the Burrow tonight; there was simply not enough room for them all—and Ron and Luna stayed down with Harry, and, in spite of the late hour, they spent a good hour or so just talking. Harry, having spent two years in rather stilted, lonely company, was amazed at how easily conversation seemed to come to him. It was as if all the words and thoughts he had stored up for two years simply came pouring out.

He and Ron had never really had a problem talking to one other before, of course, and Luna could always be counted on to spring something wildly amusing upon them. Harry was thankful that, at least, hadn't changed.

When Ron and Luna finally said goodnight, Harry was still quite awake. He went to the kitchen, only to be excitedly cannoned into (again) by Dobby, who told him in no uncertain terms (again) that he must never leave again and must always remain there to give 'Dobby' orders. The culmination of this speech (again) was another back-breaking hug around the middle.

Dobby vanished a moment later, to who-knew-where, and Harry went to the kitchen window and watched the frost outside. His thoughts, though happier than they had been in months, were strangely bleak.

"Harry?"

He turned; Hermione stood not far behind him. She must have had a bath and changed after putting her son—her son—to bed. Harry felt a twinge of something very dark and unpleasant, knotting up his stomach. It wasn't jealousy, no, not really. It was more like a mixture of wistfulness and bitterness and envy.

"Things have changed," he blurted.

Hermione nodded a little sadly. "Yes, they have."

"I'm not the same person I was when I left," he said. "You've changed a bit too. So's Ron—he's grown up a little, if that's even possible. I'm almost twenty now, and you'll be twenty-one in September. We're _old_. And—" there it was again, that unpleasant feeling; why did he _feel_ this way? He shouldn't; he cared about Hermione as he did Ron… or maybe a little more… but that was _it_. "—And you're married to Neville now."

"What?" Hermione was startled into laughter. "Harry, what in the world gave you that idea?"

"Well, you were with him at dinner and he and David seemed very close," said Harry, who was beginning to feel a little foolish. But then, he thought resentfully, why not? Why shouldn't he think Neville and Hermione were married. "He asked you to the Yule Ball, if you remember."

Hermione now looked hideously amused. "Harry, we're very close friends, as we've always been. But Neville's always been far more interested in Ginny, which you would know if you'd been female. Sadly, boys are so hopelessly slow when it comes to matters of emotional feeling that…" she sighed, clearly aware that it would have no effect on him; after all, he couldn't _help_ that he was a boy, could he?

"Well, it did seem sort of weird that Ron didn't mention Neville was living here as well," he admitted a little sheepishly. "But I just thought that Ron, being Ron, just forgot all about him."

"A fair point, but quite untrue. I'm not married."

"Oh. But—"

"What's wrong with being just the one parent?" Hermione asked defensively, watching him with the old flare of anger in her eyes. There was a defiance there as well, that hadn't always been there.

He frowned. "There's nothing wrong with it, that isn't what I meant. Hermione, you ought to know me better than that. David's a wonderful boy, though I don't know him very well, of course. I just wanted to know who his dad is."

"What's it to you?" she snapped, and then added shortly: "He's dead."

Harry stared at her. How much had she endured since he'd disappeared, and how had she coped? How could he not have been here, to be the kind of friend to her that Ron and Luna, and Ginny and Neville, probably had been? "I'm sorry," he said, and he meant it. But there, damn it, there was that dark twisting feeling in his stomach again. "Did you love him?" he asked, before he could stop himself.

"Harry!"

"Sorry," he muttered. "I just—"

"Wanted to know," she finished, with a sudden tired sigh. "I know. Yes, I loved him," she said with quiet dignity. "Very much. I don't blame you for being curious—David must have come as… something of a surprise."

Try 'shock', he wanted to say, but he didn't. He wanted to ask her how she'd loved this man when, only a few months before, she had…

No. His mind shut down. He had locked away that memory. He would not unearth it now.

He suddenly wondered whether David's father had been killed in the war with Voldemort. Admittedly, he must have been alive after Harry had left, but there had been stray Death Eaters and the odd aftermath killing during that time. Did Hermione resent him for that, because he'd sort of been the root of the war, hadn't he? Did she blame him for also taking away the man she'd loved?

Harry felt suddenly sick.

"How did he die?" he asked, needing to know.

Hermione stared at him, as if fighting back some kind of anguish, and then something flickered in her eyes. Once again, she understood him too well. "Oh, Harry, it wasn't the war," she assured him, so earnestly he couldn't doubt her, "He died quite differently. It had nothing to do with Voldemort or the Death Eaters."

He nodded slowly.

"There are some things I never really wanted to change," she said suddenly, and he was surprised by the way she approached him and touched his arm. "I don't regret David, not for a minute. I don't mean that. I mean _you_. It was stupid of me to say those things that night, Harry, to ruin everything with that. I—I can't hold it against you for not wanting me to… you know. It's not your fault you didn't feel… well, anyway."

"No," he said, "Please don't—it _was_ my fault—"

"Listen to me," said Hermione firmly. "I'm just sorry we lost the friendship we had. We'll always be friends, Harry, but we'll never get _that_ back, will we? What we had all those years."

Harry felt a rather bitter smile tug at his mouth. "I really made a mess of your life, didn't I?"

"No more than I did," she said quietly.

"I'm sorry about that night, Hermione. I don't regret what happened, because there was no way it wouldn't have happened, after everything we'd felt and everything we had been through… but I'm sorry about what it did to you."

Hermione looked out of the window, and he could tell she was fighting back tears. "You really don't understand, do you, Harry?"

He accepted this; he hadn't expect outright forgiveness, anyway, but he was a little confused nonetheless. "I don't… Hermione, if you're referring to the fact that I left the way I did, well, I thought you understood why I had to do it. I'm sorry. You have no idea how sorry I am I left that way. But _you_ were the one who made the others understand, weren't you?"

"Yes," she admitted. "They were so hurt and upset, and I didn't want them to think you hadn't cared enough or that they'd done something wrong. I suppose I didn't want them to think badly of you, either. So I explained it to them. I told them about something my mother told me when I was very little. She said that wounded wolves sometimes go away, to hide and to lick their wounds, so that no one will see them and be hurt by them. And that they return, stronger than ever. It was why you left, wasn't it?"

Harry almost smiled; she knew him so well! "Yes," he said. "I needed to heal. And in a way, I did. But not completely. Some things didn't go away."

"No. No, they never do."

He realized she hadn't really answered his question, that she hadn't really explained what she'd meant by "you really don't understand, do you, Harry?", but he didn't press it. He wasn't sure he wanted to hear the answer.

"Harry?"

He looked up. "Yeah?"

"If I _did_ get married, would you mind?"

_Yes_. Harry gritted his teeth. "No," he said, as firmly as he could, determined to ignore and prove wrong that sly little voice in his head. He fought the sensation in his stomach. "Why would I mind?"

"I just wondered," said Hermione, very quietly. "You're sure, then?"

_No. Never. Please don't believe me._ "Yes, I am. Why? Who might you be getting married to?" Was that _too_ curious? Harry scowled inwardly, furious with that stupid, _delusional_ voice. "Why do you want to get married, anyway?"

"I'm not getting married to anyone. I just wanted to know."

"I don't have a say in it, Hermione," he said uneasily, while simultaneously indecently relieved.

"Right, of course. So, what do you plan to do now?"

The abrupt change in subject startled him, but he replied quite honestly: "I'm going to start my life here again. I left a lot of things in pieces when I left. I think it's time to pick them up."

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Harry walked through the hallway, scanning the names on the doors. He had already had his hand shaken no less than forty times, had been stared at by no less than a hundred people, had been asked at least ten times to sign a piece of parchment with his famous wand, and all by wizards and witches old enough to be his grandparents! You would think, being in the Ministry of Magic, that famous people were all over the place. Apparently, one didn't get more 'cool' than Harry Potter. It was getting thoroughly wearing.

He didn't _want_ to be famous, or thanked, or any kind of celebrity. None of them knew what it was like to be on his side of the wars and the struggles. They hadn't seen all that death and blood and pain. He just wanted to be left alone.

He came to a halt beside a door labeled: 'Kingsley Shacklebolt: Head of the Auror Office', and knocked.

"Come in," called Kingsley's deep, slow voice.

Harry entered the office, and smiled at the Auror inside. "Hi, Kingsley. Do you have a minute?"

"Potter!" Kingsley looked surprised. "Come in, please, and have a seat. To what do I owe this pleasure? I've been actually hoping to have a professional word with you, as it happens, so your timing couldn't have been better."

"What's going on?"

"Well, I've been meaning to talk to you about your career," said Kingsley, conjuring up two large mugs of coffee and handing one to Harry. "You _do_ want to have a career, don't you?"

"I sort of planned on it, yeah."

"I was hoping you'd join the Aurors, Harry."

Harry laughed. "Funny coincidence; I came here to ask you whether there was any way I could get a job working for you."

"Get a job?" said Kingsley incredulously. "You'll be one of the highest-ranking Aurors right off the bat, Harry. Surely you haven't forgotten that you're one of the best—if not the best—wizard in the world at present?"

"Doubt it," said Harry. "Do I qualify, though? I have no NEWTs, I didn't attend my last year at Hogwarts."

"No, and that may set you back a bit." Kingsley brightened. "But you've got more practical experience and skill in all the necessary departments, than all the Aurors in my Office put together—with the exception of Tonks and myself, of course. We're almost as good as you are." He winked and Harry laughed in spite of himself. "You can take the tests, Harry. But I would advise brushing up on some NEWT theory in the necessary subjects. Professor McGonagall ought to be able to cite a few good books for you."

"Hermione'll make sure I pass that bit with flying colors," said Harry dryly.

Kingsley chuckled. "So she will. Do we have an agreement, then?"

"Yes, sir. Thanks for this."

"It's not a problem, Harry. My department would be honored to have you working with us. No one's better at catching Dark wizards than you are. Of course, I understand your problems with Scrimgeour and the rest of the Ministry, and rest assured, you will not have to answer to any of them."

Grateful, and relieved, Harry left Kingsley's office after signing a few papers and arranging to receive his test dates by owl post. He left the Ministry of Magic, and Disapparated from a secluded spot in one of the London alleys. He opened his eyes to find himself in the familiar exteriors of the train station outside the Hogwarts grounds. Smiling to himself, his heart lifting at the sight of the old castle, his second home (for Grimmauld Place, with its essence of Sirius and his friends, had become home to him), Harry made his way to the gates.

If he'd missed the Burrow, he had missed Hogwarts about a hundred times more.

Of course, he'd gotten used to missing Hogwarts, having only paid it a few visits during what ought to have been his seventh year—and would have been, too, if it hadn't been for Voldemort and Dumbledore's damn self-sacrificial plan to have Snape kill him so that Voldemort would trust him implicitly.

Pushing away his darker thoughts, Harry walked towards the castle doors. He really hoped he didn't wind up meeting Snape, who was back to teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts. Though he admired Snape's strength of will and loyalty to Dumbledore, he would never forgive him for going along with the old wizard's plan. Nor would he ever like him; Snape had made his school years—and Sirius's last few weeks—much too unpleasant for that to ever happen.

Harry paused for a moment when he caught sight of a trio of students sitting under one of the beech trees all the way down by the lake.

They were so far away that he could almost believe…

Sighing, he turned back to the castle. He'd left youth and innocence behind him a long time ago. He'd left his friends behind too, had dragged them through war, and changed them all. He couldn't have those golden days back.

"Harry?" said an excited voice, jerking him back to reality. "It is you! I knew it was you!"

Harry stared awkwardly at the excited fifth- or sixth-year boy before him, and tried hard to place the face. When the saw the camera dangling from the boy's wrist, it suddenly hit him.

"_Dennis_?" he said incredulously, hardly able to believe this was the tiny little younger Creevey brother he'd known briefly. "Hi!"

"I _knew_ you'd recognize me, Harry!" said Dennis Creevey happily. "It's good to have you back—are you back for good, Harry?"

"Dennis, don't shout—" Harry looked around uneasily, aware that Dennis's repeated yells of 'Harry' and his general appearance had caught the attention and interest of people all around. "I really don't want everyone to know I'm here…" Too late. He could see a group of giggling girls already moving towards them.

Quite unexpectedly, a familiar and wonderfully welcome voice cut across the courtyard: "Can I have all the students back to their respective classes?" Professor McGonagall said sternly. "Your lessons must have started, and that young man is not a zoo exhibit!"

Rather regretfully, the students scattered. Dennis gave Harry a final grin, and took off as well. Harry was left alone with Professor McGonagall.

"Good afternoon, Harry," she said crisply, approaching him and eyeing him critically. "You don't look very well—a little on a thin side, shall we say? I'm glad to see you've returned," she added with a return of her old beady sternness, and Harry felt a rush of affection towards her. "It took you long enough."

"I can always rely on you to put me firmly in my place, Professor," said Harry, genuinely pleased to see her. "You don't have a class now?"

"I do occasionally have free lessons," Professor McGonagall informed him dryly, "At present, Miss Granger is teaching my second-year Gryffindor class. Not a very bright bunch, if I may say so, but she is very patient with them, and if anyone can knock a bit of sense into hopelessly thick skulls, it must be Hermione Granger. Now, Potter," she went on, "Kingsley Shacklebolt just contacted me. I hear you're going to take your Auror tests."

"Yeah. I actually came here to ask you if you could give me a list of good NEWT books, so that I can brush up on the theory parts."

"Looking forward to this?"

Harry smiled a little wryly. "Catching Dark wizards is in my blood and my history, Professor. I can't get away from it, and I've always wanted to be an Auror. Now, after the war, the desire sort of waned a bit. The last thing I want is more battle. But if I have a talent, I think I ought to use it."

"An excellent philosophy," said Professor McGonagall approvingly. "I would offer you a post as Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, only I fear you and Severus Snape would not deal well together."

"That's putting it mildly."

"Indeed. I shall draw you up a list of books for your NEWT theory, Harry, and send it along to you with Hermione. Have you met David, by the way?"

This sudden change was disconcerting. Harry blinked. "Hermione's son. Yeah, I met him when I arrived last week. I haven't seen much of him since—been really busy—but we're getting to know one another and he's a great kid. Seems to know all about me, though."

"He's heard stories," said Professor McGonagall. "I'm glad you like him. Keep a close eye on him, would you, Potter?"

"What do you mean?" asked Harry quickly.

McGonagall hesitated, and then said, "Harry, there's an excellent chance that Hermione, knowing her son as she does and being exceptionally intelligent as she is, already knows this. But I haven't mentioned it to her because I don't want to cause her any unnecessary anxiety, so I would ask that you refrain from mentioning this as well. David is an exceptionally magical boy. You have only to look at his heritage to see that. But his magic is not what concerns me. There have been… rumors… of a certain ex-Death Eater reappearing. She has been spotted in many places, and while she has caused no trouble, she is certainly not safe. We have not been able to run her to ground and arrest her—she is still quick and powerful enough to elude us—but she also has ears. If she discovers that Hermione Granger has a son…"

"You think she might try to kidnap David and use his magic," Harry demanded with a twinge of foreboding, "Sort of raise him into the Dark Arts?"

He could not have explained why the thought bothered him so much; possibly because in spite of everything, he'd gotten fond of David, and possibly because he hated the idea of the Dark Arts and all they stood for. But there was something else, nagging at him.

"Evidently you do not understand, Potter," said McGonagall dryly. "This woman is very intelligent, whatever else she may be. She will know—or she will think that she knows—exactly who David Granger is, and her underground network of rumors will do little to dispel her suspicions. David being Hermione's son alone will be enough, I fear. Hermione is not a favorite of this woman's. I am not thinking of her using the boy, Harry. I am thinking of _revenge_."

Harry felt a slight chill. He thought he knew exactly what Professor McGonagall meant. He nodded slowly. "I won't say anything to Hermione. Who is she, this ex-Death Eater? Alecto?"

"I'd rather not say at present. As I said, I don't want to worry anyone unnecessarily. But I'm sure you can see why I approve of your decision to take the Auror tests. And take care of that child, Harry. As much as I admire Mr. Weasley, Miss Lovegood, Mr. Longbottom and Miss Weasley, for their own talents, they are nowhere near as competent or skilled as you and Hermione are. Nor are they aware of the dangers involved in our world."

Harry nodded. "I'll watch over him."

"I trust you will."

"Professor," he added, a little awkwardly, "Would it be all right if I went up to your office now? I sort of wanted to—you know—visit Professor Dumbledore."

Minerva McGonagall gave him her rare smile then. "Of course, Potter," she said, a little wistfully. "Please go ahead. He has been eagerly looking forward to seeing you again. The password is '_sherbet lemon_'. I think you'll agree, won't you, that he would have approved."

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**TBC.**

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	3. Have Long Shadows

**Disclaimer: **I don't, of course, own any of this. JK Rowling/Warner Brothers do. I do own _two_ characters, though (you'll know who).

**Summary: **Broken after the war, Harry left. Now, two years later, he's finally found the strength to return, only to discover that old sins have long shadows…

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**Old Sins**

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**Chapter Three: _Have Long Shadows_**

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"I'm so, _so_ sorry," Hermione called breathlessly, hurrying through the Burrow's kitchen door and slamming it shut behind her.

She rushed through the wide doorway to the den, where a man sat at the large table, watching her hasty progress towards him. "My last class ended later than usual, and then I had to talk to this one student, and I _knew_ Mrs. Weasley had to go out at three o' clock, but I just couldn't get away…"

"It's all right, Hermione," said Lupin, smiling. "Molly contacted me when she had to leave, and I was merely working on some papers, so I brought them here and kept an eye on Belle and David. He's fast asleep now," he gestured to the two small children fast asleep on the sofa, thumbs firmly in mouths. Lupin chuckled. "I think he first wore Belle out, and then wore himself out."

"Thank heavens for you," Hermione said emphatically, and sat down in the chair opposite Lupin. "Was he very difficult?"

Lupin laughed. "David's never difficult, Hermione. He's an astonishingly clever young boy, and when he isn't trying a new trick, he's a very good listener and you'd be amazed at how quickly he picks things up. He does have high spirits," he added, his eyes twinkling. "He tried to pour treacle into my hair while I was working, but I've spent far too much time with James and Sirius to be taken in so easily."

Hermione couldn't help laughing. "I was never that mischievous as a child," she said in despair, "Where in the world did he get it from?"

"Ron once mentioned his father had a streak of mischief in him," said Lupin mildly, without looking up from the book in front of him. "Having never met him myself, I can't verify that, of course, but I assume Ron was right?"

"Yes," Hermione said slowly, watching Lupin very carefully.

Lupin looked up at that moment, and their eyes met. Hermione knew him very well by now—they had always been close—and she knew that when Lupin used that mild, deceptively impassive tone of voice, it was meant much more. Now, meeting his eyes and trying not to flinch from the calm perception there, she could see that he was aware of much more than she'd ever guessed. And that, even more than that, he didn't condemn her for it: in fact, he _understood_.

"So you know," she said softly.

Lupin reached across and squeezed her hand, smiling sympathetically. "David looks exactly like him, you know. It isn't obvious at all—only someone who saw Harry as a baby, and knew James when he was young, would really see it—but David does look remarkably like them. Except for the eyes," he added, smiling, "He has your eyes."

"Ron and Luna know—they knew right from the beginning," said Hermione weakly, "And Ginny's one of my best friends; I had to tell her when David was born, and she can be a bit of a brat sometimes, but she's been a good friend to me and she was so pleased about it; and Neville guessed too, because Ginny gave it away to him quite by accident…"

"Yes, I had a feeling they were all aware of how things stood."

"Tonks knows, doesn't she?" Hermione asked Lupin, and he looked a little sheepish and suddenly much younger. Hermione smiled a little. "It's all right; she knows you too well anyway. Do you think everyone else knows, too?" she added helplessly, suddenly reminded of that horrible time when Mrs. Weasley had treated her coldly because she'd believed Hermione had been 'cheating' Harry.

"I think they guess," said Lupin gently. "They don't _know_—they aren't even sure, because you've kept up the pretence of the other man quite well—but they have a fair idea."

"How is it that obvious?"

"They've noticed the resemblances in character, you know, apart from the physical. David has that sense of curiosity and mischief that Harry's always had.

"But I'll be honest," Lupin went on, "I knew that David was his even before I saw him. Hermione, I know you too well, and Harry is enough like James and Lily that I know him. I knew how you felt about him possibly even before you did. When you two suddenly backed away from one another, I knew and understood why. Tonks and I had something similar, if you remember. I was running from Tonks, and she had no choice but to back away, feeling rejected."

"Only Harry wasn't _running_," said Hermione, "He just didn't feel the way I did. I can't blame him for that, can I? He hurt me, yes, but that's not what I hold against him."

Lupin sighed. "He may be like them in many ways, but Harry _isn't_ James or Lily, and I can't speak for him. I don't know how he really feels about you, Hermione, though I _do_ know he appreciates and cares very much for you. But I will say this: he has always been immeasurably lucky to have you in his life."

Hermione smiled gratefully, blinking back tears. "Thank you. When I saw him again—"

"I know. I saw the look on your face. You dealt with it wonderfully, by the way." Lupin smiled a little. "I think David guesses that Harry's his father, you know. It's amazing, how intuitive children can be. He senses that Harry isn't to be looked at on the same level as Ron or Neville or Fred and George or me. He senses how you feel, too, and I think, he responds to Harry in a way he doesn't to anyone else, and loves him accordingly."

Hermione felt a wave of helplessness and despair wash over her. "I know," she said brokenly, "I hate watching him try to get closer to Harry. Harry never rebuffs him; in fact, he really does treat him like a baby brother or a son, but… but what happens when he goes away? When he finds someone else? How will David and I cope with it then?"

"You don't plan to tell him?"

"How _can_ I? Even if I could forgive him for leaving, or even if I could risk David and risk myself again, I don't want to tie him to me. I know Harry! He would do the right thing, and I don't want him to stay with me because of _this_."

Lupin squeezed her hand again. "You're not alone, Hermione. You just need to remember that. And while you're quite right about him doing the right thing, you also need to give Harry more credit. Sooner or later, he'll see it, you know. Sooner or later, he'll figure out that David is his son and he'll be hurt you didn't tell him the truth."

"I wish he had never come back."

"No, you don't," said Lupin, smiling. "If you really did wish that—and I _know_ you don't—then I've overestimated you and your love for him all these years."

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"Hey, Ron?"

Ron turned away from the new broomstick being displayed in the shop window, and rejoined Harry at their table outside Gibble Wibble's Ice Cream Parlor.

It was the day after he'd gone to Hogwarts. He had exhausted himself reading one of his NEWT books that morning. Taking a break and having found himself with nothing to do, with Hermione, Ron and Luna at work and David at the Burrow, Harry had gone to watch Ron's practice.

The Chudley Cannons had been terribly nice and terribly excited to meet him. Ron had been so proud—Ron certainly had grown up from the boy he'd known in the fourth year. The team had let Harry play, even going so far as to (sincerely) 'ooh' and 'aah' over his Quidditch performance. He smiled at the memory now. He'd missed the game. Traveling on his Firebolt was not quite the same as playing Quidditch.

Now, after practice, Harry and Ron had come to Diagon Alley to meet Fred and George. Ron took back his chair opposite Harry and looked expectantly at him.

"What's up, mate?"

"How come Hermione didn't go to see her parents at all during Christmas?"

It was easier bringing up Hermione's name in a personal light with Ron and Luna, than with the others, because they, after all, _knew_.

Ron looked awkward and uneasy. "It's a bit complicated, Harry. See, when David was born, Hermione wasn't married and didn't even have a father to show her parents at that time. They were sorry to hear he was dead and they love Hermione and David and all that, but it was a bit embarrassing for them to have an unmarried daughter with a baby." He shrugged. "Hermione and them sort of drifted apart. She was… er… Luna says she was very hurt about it."

Harry looked at Ron. He felt awful for Hermione. Things had really turned sour for her, hadn't they?

"She really needed you, mate," Ron added uncomfortably, "She needed us all, but you know you and she have always been closer… anyway, I just think your timing was pretty lousy," he finished in a rush.

Harry appreciated Ron's honesty, but it didn't make him feel better. "I know," he said hollowly.

"But it's all over now, right?" said Ron hastily. "You're back and we're eating ice cream and you and Hermione will get back together—"

"No," said Harry quickly. "No, that isn't happening. We were never really together, Ron."

"But—" Ron looked dismayed.

Harry sighed. Ron's emotional range hadn't changed much. How could he explain to him that he simply couldn't get tangled up with Hermione again? He couldn't hurt her, or himself, like that again. Nor could he, if he was honest with himself, bring himself to fully forgive her for moving on so quickly with whoever David's father was. It made him feel bitter and ashamed and angry and sad all at once, and while he knew it was his fault, it didn't make matters any better or easier.

Of course, if he tried telling Ron all that, Ron would just look blank and lost and utterly thrown for a loop. There was no point trying.

"Let's just drop it," he suggested quietly. "Just try to understand, Ron. It would never work."

"I once fancied myself in love with Hermione," said Ron reflectively.

Harry grinned. "I know you did. You made a prat of yourself, too. But I can't talk, can I? I once fancied myself in lust with your sister."

"Say one more word on that subject, and I'll never be able to finish my ice-cream."

"But then you realized it was Luna who really had you," Harry said, laughing. "Wow. That really came as a punch in the face to Fred, George and me. We couldn't believe it. I mean, you were one who laughed at us most! Hermione wasn't too surprised, though. By then, she'd gotten over her little possessive crush on you too."

"And you moved on from Ginny," said Ron, though, thankfully, he didn't point out where Harry'd moved on _to_.

Harry smiled faintly. "Yeah, I did."

"We had some pretty good times, didn't we? I mean, war and all, we still managed to live."

That was it, thought Harry. That was what had been missing from his life for so very long. Even before he'd left, somewhere along the way before that—was it after that night?—he'd just stopped _living_.

"Yeah," he said wistfully, "They were good days, Ron."

"What were good days?" George asked, appearing alongside them with his twin brother in tow and dropping into the two empty chairs at their little table. He signaled for two more sundaes.

"When we were young," said Ron dramatically.

Fred snorted. "Yes, Grandpa."

"Listen, you two," said Harry, "Have either of you heard anything about stray female ex-Death Eaters? It's Auror business," he added hastily. "I was wondering whether you'd gotten any orders for your defense line…"

"Mate, after what Malfoy did with our Peruvian Darkness Powder, we've been careful about who we sell stuff to," said George.

"Fair enough."

"I did hear a funny rumor from Lee Jordan—he's in Magical Law Enforcement now, you know. He said something about an ex-Death Eater, a woman, having some kind of mad fit in a crowded Muggle street, screaming and casting wild hexes. She got away, though."

"They're all barking," said Ron, his voice muffled because his mouth was full, "You-Know-Who's death made the ones left snap a bit."

"You could say his name now, you know," said Harry wryly. "He's _dead_."

"Still gives me the bloody creeps. You didn't grow up with those stories, Harry. Anyway," Ron went on, clearly eager to get the subject off that of Voldemort, "You two going to the Masquerade next weekend?"

Fred nodded. "Wouldn't miss it for the world," he and George said together.

"Masquerade?" Harry asked, puzzled.

"Oh, I forgot, Harry, you wouldn't know about it—an invitation arrived for you yesterday, but Luna must have left it somewhere where no one's found it so far. You remember the Patil twins, yeah? Well, they're having a masquerade ball at their place next Saturday. We're all going—it should be cool." Ron grinned and scraped at the bottom of his ice-cream bowl. "You've got about ten days to get your clothes and mask together."

Harry was intrigued. He had read about masquerades, of course, and seen Muggle movies where they invariably played a mysterious and romantic role. But he'd never been to one, and he was curious to see what a wizarding world masquerade would be like.

Besides, he reminded himself sternly, he'd come back to start his life again, hadn't he? That included balls as well. He had to get out of the I-could-die-tomorrow-and-should-worry-about-battle mindset.

As long as they got one thing clear…

"I don't dance," he said grimly.

Ron looked horrified. "What're you, crazy? Did you think I would? No, we'll just go and laugh at everyone else and eat the food! There'll be Firewhisky too!"

"You _do_ know you're old enough to buy and drink it on your own," George pointed out with a sigh of disgust.

"Hermione's going to the Masquerade as well, isn't she?" Fred asked Ron innocently.

Harry wondered why the twin's blue eyes flickered in his direction.

"Yeah," said Ron, oblivious as always.

"Oh, good," said Fred, looking distinctly happier, "Should be interesting."

Harry narrowed his eyes. "Why?" he asked, before he could stop himself from doing so.

"Oh, she's a pretty girl…"

Harry felt slightly ill. _Over my dead body_, he thought bleakly.

Ron looked up, looking utterly flabbergasted. "No, no, _no_," he said, "You stay away from her, Fred. I'm warning you, if you so much as make a move in Hermione's direction, I—I'll tell Mum. I will!"

"No matter," said Fred quite cheerfully; he and George were watching Harry with a curiously satisfied look, and Harry realized too late that he'd fallen quite spectacularly into their trap. Honestly, what was wrong with him, he wondered. He didn't own Hermione. She was free to date or marry anyone she wanted, she was. It was not his business, except in the same way Ron made it his business, a brotherly sort of thing. She could snog Fred in a broom cupboard if she wanted. _And he didn't care._

He really didn't. They were friends, nothing more.

And they never _would_ be anything else.

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Cross-legged on her bed, Hermione looked at the photographs scattered around her and the empty album before her. She'd always intended to create a proper photo album for them all, but she'd never gotten around to it. Harry's return seemed to have sparked off many new things.

She sighed now as she picked up a moving picture of Harry and herself; they were standing under the beech tree at Hogwarts and talking, completely aware that Colin had snuck up and snapped a picture. Colin had given it to her, very kindly, after Harry had left. Hermione smiled and touched the picture, watching her younger self look scandalized about something. Harry in the picture grinned and poked her in the arm affectionately.

"I miss you, Harry," she whispered to herself.

Quite unexpectedly, she heard a strange sound from the next room: Harry's room. The sound was painfully familiar, yet strange because it had been so long since she'd heard it.

Heart wrenching, Hermione got out of bed instinctively, and tied her robe over her tank top and pajama bottoms. She checked that David was soundly asleep in his crib, and then slipped quietly to her door, moved out into the corridor, and shut the door quietly behind her. Her heart beginning to hammer very quickly, she tiptoed down the hallway, well aware that it must be past midnight, and reached Harry's door.

Very silently, she opened it and slipped inside, locking the door behind her. Harry lay on his bed, illuminated by the moonlight streaming in through the window.

She could see, as she approached him, that his face was covered in a clammy sheen of cold sweat, and he was trembling, biting down on his fist—all in his sleep—to stifle his moans and cries. Hermione swallowed hard, biting back tears and the awful lump in her throat. Her heart went out to him, as it had before. How she wished she could take all his nightmares, all his pain, away. She wouldn't even mind if she had to endure it instead, for him.

"Harry," she said very quietly, touching his forehead. She sat down beside him on the bed. "Harry, wake up. It's me."

His eyes flew open. "Hermione," he croaked, eyes wild and full of pain as they fixed on her.

"It's all right," she said, as he covered his face with his hands and let out a few shaky breaths. "It was just a nightmare. I heard you, and I came… I thought…" she felt suddenly uncomfortable. "I thought you might need some company for a minute or two."

"Thank you," he whispered through his hands.

"It's the least I can do. Do you want to tell me what it was about?"

He shook his head. He looked very shaken, and his eyes, when he finally looked at her again and met hers, were haunted. "It was only a nightmare," he said, so firmly that she knew he was trying to convince himself. "It wasn't real and it never will be. I'd rather not dwell on it."

She nodded, understanding at once. For a few minutes, they just sat quietly on the bed together. Harry's arm was pressed against hers, and his hand sought hers and held it tightly. She looked down at their entwined fingers and wanted to cry. Why did he find it so hard to love her? Why wasn't she good enough for him? Why hadn't this worked out for her, this one thing that had meant more to her than anything else in the world?

"I missed you," he said softly, at last. "No one sees me the way you do, Hermione. They see Harry Potter. Even Ron, sometimes. But you… you just see me. Not the Boy who lived, not the Chosen One, just… me."

"You're wonderful without any of that," she assured him.

He smiled weakly. "Wish I could believe that."

"Do you want me to stay here?" she asked tentatively. "Just until you fall asleep again?"

It wasn't the first time she'd asked him this, but she could tell, from his startled look, that he hadn't expected it this time. She watched him, heart trembling, certain he would rebuff her now, afraid of what she might say or do if she stayed. But it was only in these dark, bleak hours, when he could be sure that no one else was listening, that he unmasked his pride and showed her the true, battered, sometimes afraid boy inside the shell of a fighter.

"Yes," he said simply, showing her that boy now.

She nodded and tightened her hold on his hand. "I'll always be here," she said, without thinking about it, "Whenever you need me, whatever happens, I'll always be here for you, Harry. I always have been."

"I know," he said, very sadly, "I think that's why I came back."

Hermione stayed with him, beside him, their bodies warm and just barely touching, yet not needing to, because he could feel her with him even as sleep took him once more. Hermione saw him swallow, saw tears shimmer briefly in his eyes, before he shut them. She stayed there, for minutes or hours or days, just watching him as he slipped back into sleep, this time free of any nightmares.

Before he'd returned, she had believed she could move on. That she could forget everything he was and everything he had meant to her. She'd believed that David and her friends were all she would ever need. And while they were everything to her, even now—David was her life, her heart and soul; she would be lost without him—she still knew she'd lied to herself for two long years. Because she wanted more now.

She _needed_ more.

She needed Harry.

Hermione closed her eyes, aware that in the pale moonlight, he could no longer see or hear her, and let the tears slip out from under the eyelids, tracking pale streaks down her cheeks. There was too much between Harry and her now, too much to forgive that hadn't yet been forgiven and too much to lose to be willing to risk it all over again. Her heart wouldn't be able to stand a second beating.

"You'll never know," she told him, brushing black hair off his forehead, "Just how much I've always loved you."

Clouds shifted and darkened the moon as she left the room, shutting the door behind her very quietly. When she went back to her room, she lifted David carefully out of his crib and laid him beside her in the bed, drawing her son close to her and holding him tightly.

She loved him so much. And there was more, too. He was, after all, the only part of Harry she would ever get to keep.

Dobby, never truly asleep, watched Hermione return to her own room. He looked tired and sorrowed and troubled. House-elves were very perceptive to all the different kinds of magics in the air. Including the magic of the heart. And Dobby could see that there were unhealed wounds, deep sicknesses of the soul, and a great deal of sadness in Number 12, Grimmauld Place.

The shadows were very long indeed.

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**TBC.**

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**A/N:** SwishAndFlick31: I hadn't realized the concept was such a cliché. I apologize for that :-) I'm going to try to spin it as originally as I can.

Mrblack: Yes, this is a Harry/Hermione story.

Oh, and if anyone was wondering why it is Gibble Wibble ice-cream instead of Florean Fortescue, well, if you remember, Fortescue went missing in HBP and I've operated under the premise that he never came back, so a new guy opened a new ice-cream place.

Thanks for the reviews!!


	4. The Last Malfoy

**Disclaimer: **I don't, of course, own any of this. JK Rowling/Warner Brothers do. I do own Belle and David, though.

**Summary: **Broken after the war, Harry left. Now, two years later, he's finally found the strength to return, only to discover that old sins have long shadows…

**A/N: **Cassie: I know, David _does_ seem a little "old" for his age, but I've actually spent a lot of time with a few kids who act like that at about 2 years old, and my mother tells me _I_ was jabbering away at the age of one and a half, so... while I agree it's a stretch, it was sort of convenient to the plot :-)

Evergreen Sceptre: Your questions are awesome; they really gave me stuff to think about! I'd already planned to include answers to some of them, so it was cool when you brought it up i.e. physical scars and magic from other parts of Europe.

AndI don't know what Aberforth's character is really going to be like, of course, but from the little we saw of him in "Order of the Phoenix", I'm guessing that he's a bit on the gloomy side. I know we'll meet him in "Deathly Hallows", but I can't resist taking a stab at predicting what he could turn out to be. So, do try to excuse it if he doesn't fit your ideas!

I _love_ reviews, by the way _(not so subtle hint)_.

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**Old Sins**

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**Chapter Four: _The Last Malfoy_**

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Harry stopped short in the doorway of his den. "Since when has there been a _TV_ in our house?" he demanded of Ron, Hermione and David (Ron and David were gawking at the screen in unadulterated wonder).

"Since today," said Hermione. "I bought it—I thought Ron, David and Luna might enjoy it. I'd much prefer David read books," she added with a slightly resentful look at the screen, "But I read in a book on Mother Care that it's a good idea to expose your children to as much as possible. I think he could do with a bit of light watching too. If you were wondering why it's working, what with all the magic in this house—" (Harry had indeed been wondering this) "—Well, I modified it a bit."

"The house or the TV?" Harry asked, going over to sit on the couch between Ron and Hermione.

Hermione smiled. "The television."

Trust Hermione to buy books on _Mother Care_, actually read them, _and _know how to magically modify a Muggle television.

"Hi, Hawwy!" David chirped happily, turning his attention from the screen and promptly climbing onto Harry's lap. Ron still hadn't given any indication that he was even aware that there were other people in the room. He was watching the man onscreen with positively unseemly fascination. Prior to climbing on Harry's lap, David had been putting Play-Doh in his hair and he hadn't so much as batted an eye.

Harry shifted so that the baby could get comfortable in his lap. He had been very uneasy when David had first started climbing all over him, and had even held the boy upside-down once (to everyone's horror, except for Ron, who confessed he'd done it a good few times too). But now, he was surprised to realize it felt oddly nice. He looked down at the black-haired head in front of him, and smiled to himself. He seemed to have grown fonder and fonder of David since he'd met him.

However, he couldn't help noticing that David never called him 'Uncle Harry'. Had Hermione told him Harry wasn't part of the 'family'? It hurt a bit, that.

He looked sideways at Hermione. She was curled up in the corner of the couch, and looked very sleepy. He softened. He knew why she was so tired. He actually felt a little guilty about that.

"Thank you," he said quietly, "For what you did last night. I needed… well… you know."

She smiled a little drowsily. "You're welcome, Harry."

"What are we watching, by the way?" He had observed that there was a man in a white mask on the screen, who appeared to be singing at a pretty girl.

"_Phantom of the Opera_. It's recorded from the West End production."

"Oh. You sure you want David to watch that? Isn't lu—I mean, L-U-S-T—one of its most obvious themes. Not exactly subtle, that," he said waving at the rather spectacular décolletage of the girl on the screen.

Hermione sighed. "I've decided I'm not going to censor David. These are facts of life and besides, it's a wonderful show."

"He's your son," said Harry, who privately felt he would have done the same had David been his son.

He looked at the boy and was utterly shaken by his next thought:

_I wish he was mine._

No, he thought. No, no. That was stupid. Why would he wish that? He didn't want kids, or a wife, or David, or Hermione, or really, anything remotely resembling the entire, not-so-repulsive cozy scenario building up his mind. If Ron wasn't here (and really, for all the attention he was paying them, he might as well not be), it could almost be a family TV session—Mum, Dad and baby. Harry did not want to be reminded of the Dursleys here, but at least they had all loved each other.

And we _don't_, he reminded himself. Not like _that_, anyway.

A few minutes later, Hermione thankfully dispelled these ludicrous illusions by injecting a note of common sense. She dragged herself off the couch. "I'd better go before I fall asleep," she said ruefully. "David? Come along, sweetheart, we've got to collect those new clothes for you from Hogsmeade before the shops close." She smiled wryly at Harry. "He grows so fast!"

Harry stood up. "I'll come with you," he said, suddenly remembering McGonagall's warning about keeping an eye on David. Besides, he wanted to spend some time with Hermione. They'd barely had any time together to catch up.

David crawled into his mother's arms, and she lifted him up and stowed her wand into the back pocket of her jeans. Harry did the same, smiling as he did—old habits certainly died hard. Moody would have an apoplexy if he saw them now. He never failed to tell them, every time they met, that they had better not go crying to him when one of them found themselves minus a buttock.

The pair and baby turned back to Ron, who was still avidly watching the Phantom and a supposedly-handsome guy duel on the television screen.

"Ron," said Harry. "_Ron_. We're going!"

"Bring me back a sandwich," Ron mumbled with a distracted wave.

"Gweedy Uncw Ron," David remarked solemnly.

Harry and Hermione laughed as they left the house. Out in the street, once they were aware no one was watching, both Disapparated—David in Side-Along Apparition with Hermione—and reappeared side by side in Hogsmeade. Darkness was just about to set in, with the cozy glow of twilight cast over the little wizarding village.

"Do you want me to take him?" Harry asked, who by now knew how to carry a baby properly.

Hermione gratefully handed David to him. "Oh, thank you, Harry. I need to find the name and number of the shop we came to last time—I can never remember exactly where it is… oh, here it is," she said, fishing a piece of paper out of her pocket. "It should be just around this corner here…"

Obediently, Harry carried David ("He really ought to be walking," Hermione said ruefully, but it was getting dark and snowy and so neither Harry nor Hermione felt like subjecting the boy to that kind of practice just yet), and followed Hermione to the baby-clothes shop she'd visited before. They soon picked out a whole new wardrobe for David—Harry found that he actually enjoyed it, and insisted on chipping in for half the clothes—and then emerged from the shop again with the smiling witch waving them away, a scrap of parchment with Harry's autograph clutched in one hand.

"Do you want to get a drink at the Hog's Head before we leave?" Harry asked Hermione, shifting David a bit so that the boy could continue playing with Harry's hair. "The Three Broomsticks will be much too crowded and we could pick up Ron's sandwich."

"Good idea," Hermione agreed. "It'll be nice to get warm for a bit, too. David, do you want to try your first Butterbeer?"

Harry grinned. "He's never had Butterbeer before?"

"Nebber," said David solemnly.

Hermione frowned. "Darling, you know perfectly well that you can say 'never'." But she smiled lovingly at her son and ruffled his black hair as they made their way into the Hog's Head.

A familiar face greeted them. "Why, hello, Hermione," the barman said, "Brought your son, too, have you—oh, he's _grown_, clever little thing. Say hello to Grandpa Aberforth, then, David! And Harry! My dear brother dropped me a line and told me you'd gone to visit his portrait. Knew you were back."

"Hi, Aberforth," said Harry, as Hermione smiled at the barman. "How's business?"

"I get by," said Aberforth on a gloomy note. "Table?"

Aberforth gave them the best table in his pub, a table set slightly apart from the others. The pub wasn't full anyway, so there was no danger of being plagued by autograph-collectors. In any case, Harry thought, the Hog's Head that never really catered to that sort of crowd…

He tipped back his chair, thoroughly enjoying watching David coo and gurgle over his first Butterbeer, which he evidently loved to bits.

"What does he like to do?" Harry asked Hermione. "I don't know much yet…"

Hermione glanced at David, and then said, a bit more cautiously than the occasion seemed to warrant: "Er… well… he likes reading. He can read only a little, of course, but he's very bright and he picks up a great deal and his memory's amazing. He clearly likes TV, too. And he's a big… er… Quidditch fan. Ron bought him his own toy broomstick for his first birthday six months ago and he takes it out often."

Harry felt a twinge of wistfulness. So David loved Quidditch. Where had he picked that up from? Hermione had never been a fan. But then, his father must have been a player… Hermione had always liked "really good" Quidditch players, hadn't she?

He remembered finding David's birth record in a drawer in Number 12, and reading his full name: _David H. Granger_.

"What's the H. for?" he'd asked Luna, who was the only one at home at the time.

Luna had smiled vaguely. "Oh, Hermione gave him his father's name."

Harry now remembered this rather savagely. Named him after his father, indeed. The 'H' probably stood for something ghastly and hideous, like 'Hickory Dickory' or 'Hugsiboo'. Yes, he could just imagine Hermione saying one of the two in the throes of passion. The thought, to his own uneasiness, made him want to throw something. Preferably something big and heavy.

"Harry?" Hermione was staring at him in confusion. "Is something wrong?"

He forced those thoughts away. "No," he said reassuringly, "Was just thinking of my first Auror test. I'm not looking forward to the theory bits."

"Oh, you'll be fine, Harry," she told him. "I'll help you."

"Momma's smart," David assured Harry.

Hermione grinned. "I always said the baby was bright."

Harry couldn't hold it in. "How could you do it?" he asked, the words bursting out of him, low and quiet but full of an intensity. David, fortunately, was occupied in getting every last drop out of his Butterbeer bottle. Hermione looked startled and he went on: "Hermione, how could you be with whomever David's father is and tell me you loved him, when just a few months before that, you told me that—"

"Don't say it, Harry," she said, her voice trembling with anger and hurt.

"—That you loved me," he finished.

Hermione glared at him. "You have quite a nerve, telling me that, Harry. If you don't remember, let me hasten to remind you: you didn't want me to love you. You had no interest in my love or in loving me back, and I will _not_ be judged for trying to be happy with a man who _did_."

"I couldn't love you," Harry protested, hurt and guilty. "You know I couldn't, you know what the stakes were back then—"

"No, Harry," Tears sparkled in her eyes. "You just _didn't_ love me. You have no right to be upset with me for moving on, and I have no right to be upset with you for not returning my feelings. So let's leave it at that. How does this matter, anyway? It was a long time ago. Evidently, we won't be repeating the past and dragging history up. So why dwell on this?"

"Because I—" he broke off abruptly, unable to finish the sentence.

Hermione's expression changed. "Because you… what?" she asked softly.

"Nothing," he said quietly. "It's nothing. You're right. I'm sorry. I should never have brought it up. I suppose," he added, with a weak attempt at a smile, "It must be my masculine ego that got a bit bruised when you moved on from me so easily."

But Hermione wasn't listening to him. She was staring at something over his shoulder, and she had gone quite pale. Almost mechanically, she reached out, picked David up, and held him to her. Alarmed, and puzzled, by these signs, Harry got to his feet as well and turned around to look at whatever—or whoever—she had seen.

His heart sank terribly and he felt a faint, involuntary tug of fear.

It was Narcissa Malfoy.

But it was not the Narcissa he remembered from his early days of the sixth year at Hogwarts. This was a woman who bore a striking resemblance to the battered shell her older sister Bellatrix had become after Azkaban. Her beautiful face was ravaged and wild and nearly mad, her pale eyes washed out yet full of a burning glitter that unnerved him deeply. Her hair was lank and lifeless. She looked like a woman who was not only insane, but one who was very dangerous.

"Why, hello, Harry Potter," she whispered, coming closer to him.

He stood his ground. "You shouldn't be here. There are Aurors looking for you." For there could be no doubt that this was the female ex-Death Eater that Professor McGonagall had been referring to. No wonder she hadn't wanted to tell him who it was. Revenge, she'd said. He felt a shiver.

"I've been looking forward to seeing you again for two long years, Potter," Narcissa said with a mad little giggle. Her eyes darkened, her voice became a harsh whisper. "You were there, weren't you, when your Order of the Phoenix murdered my husband Lucius? And you were there, of course, when my son Draco was killed. You killed them, Potter."

"I didn't touch Lucius," said Harry coldly. "And Draco was killed by one of the Death Eaters in the crossfire. I was sorry about him—he wasn't evil. And I'm sorry that you had to endure their deaths, but I had nothing to do with—"

"I don't want your pity," she nearly screamed, and the entire pub went silent. She lowered her voice again and Harry felt the impact of her words as if they were knives. "I want to see you scream and cry and wail, Harry Potter, just as I've screamed and cried and wailed."

"Narcissa—" Hermione took a step forward. "Please—I know what losing Draco must have done to you, but it wasn't Harry's fault—"

Narcissa's expression had changed. She reached out, towards David, who, with the excellent intuition of a child, backed away from her touch in a way he had never done with anyone else. "Oh," she cooed, her eyes glittering in a way that made Harry feel very cold all over. "What a sweet little baby…"

"Don't touch him," Harry growled, as Hermione backed away, clutching David tighter. "Hermione," he said, very firmly, "I think you should take David and go and join Aberforth at the bar. I think it's me that Mrs. Malfoy really wants to talk to." He waited, eyes fixed on Narcissa's gleaming face, until Hermione's footsteps faded. He reached slowly for his wand, but quick as lightning, Narcissa laid her hand on her own. He knew she wouldn't touch him, though. To murder Harry Potter in front of a whole pub would be beyond reckless. Yet, he wondered… she looked demented enough…

"Do you want to kill me?" he asked quietly, feeling an unexpected surge of pity for her. She'd loved her husband and son, after all.

Narcissa leaned towards him and whispered: "Oh, eventually, yes, Potter. But I think I'll let you live a little longer. Do you want to know why? I want you to suffer the way I've suffered. I want you to see their ghosts everywhere you go. In fact, maybe I'll leave you live the long years without them. You took away my family, the two people I loved most in the world. Now, I'm going to take away yours."

Her blue eyes flickered past him. He knew what she was looking at, and it sent a horrible, sickening chill through to his very bones. The pity he felt was stamped out and replaced by hatred.

_No_, he wanted to say, _They're not mine. He's not my son and I don't love her… You can't hurt me by taking them away, so don't, don't do it…_

But the words wouldn't come.

"Keep looking over your shoulder for me, Potter," she hissed at him. "Because I swear to you, I _will_ have them. You will know what I've known for two years. You will lose them."

And then, before he could even touch her, she was gone.

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"What did she say, Harry?" Hermione asked for the fiftieth time since they'd come back to Number 12, and sent David off to get ice-cream with Ginny and George. "What did she say to you when we were out of earshot?"

"Nothing important," he hedged, still cold and shaken.

Hermione glared at him. "Please don't insult my intelligence, Harry. I demand to know what she told you. Did she threaten you? Ron? David?"

"She just told me I ought to keep a close eye on my friends," Harry said at last, trying to avoid lying and telling the entire truth simultaneously. "She was making empty threats, Hermione, you know she can't do anything to us now. Besides, we'll have her in Azkaban before she can so much as touch one of Ron's red hairs."

"Should have clapped her in bars right there and then," Ron said between bites of his sandwich.

Hermione sighed. "I actually felt quite awful for her."

"Oh, come off it, Hermione, you know what she's like! She's never exactly been a sweet-natured cupcake."

"No, and I wouldn't have felt sorry for her two years ago, what with her penchant for the word 'Mudblood' and the like, but she _has_ endured a great deal, and since I've…" she trailed off, and her eyes shifted to a photograph on the table in the corner of the room. Harry followed her gaze. It was a picture of her, with a baby David in her arms.

He knew now what had bothered him when he'd been with McGonagall. It was the knowledge of what it would do to Hermione if anything happened to David. He sighed and said: "I know how you feel. You understand her, because she lost her son and you know how you'd feel if David… I pitied her, too. But we have no reason to be afraid of her. She's alone and she has no friends. She can't do a thing."

"She loved Malfoy so much," Hermione muttered, "It must have driven her mad to lose him. I don't blame her for wanting revenge. She'd just better not come after you, Harry," she added fiercely.

Harry grinned; he'd been worried about _her_. "Well, I wouldn't want to face you in a bad mood," he said.

"I think I'm going to go have a bath," said Hermione wearily, their earlier fight completely forgotten. "I'll see you both at dinner, all right?" To Harry's surprise, she kissed him on the cheek and gave him a hug as she left the room. He felt a lump in his throat as he realized she must have been afraid for him, believing Narcissa had sworn to have his head on a plate or something. Little did she know…

Once Hermione was out of the room, he silently cast a Silencing Charm on the door and walls.

"So what _aren't_ you telling her?" Ron inquired.

Harry almost smiled; his best friend wasn't _that_ thick. He told him the truth, and saw Ron turn pale as he came to the same terrible realization that Harry had. Very shakily, as a mark of his uneasiness, Ron discarded the rest of his sandwich. "So she thinks you and Hermione are… you know… and David's your son? And she wants to kill them both just to make you suffer the way she has for two years?"

"That's the gist, yeah."

"Would it work?" Ron asked him bluntly.

"Ron!"

"The truth, Harry."

He looked straight at Ron, and found that he _couldn't_ lie. "Yes," he said through gritted teeth. "It would work. I don't know what I'd do if something happened to her… or to them both. I just… I don't know anymore… you know?"

"Yeah, I do," said Ron unexpectedly, but didn't elaborate. "I'd be pretty lost if I didn't have them around too. So what are we going to do to make sure she doesn't try anything on either of them. Unless you tell Hermione, and even if you do, you can't exactly hire a battalion of Aurors to protect them at all times, you know. So what do we do?"

"Well, for one thing, I'm going to talk to Tonks, and try to talk to Tonks's mother. She's Narcissa's sister. Maybe they still stay in contact or something. Also, well, we have friends, you and I," said Harry with a faint smile. "It's just _Hermione_ we don't want finding out about this."

Ron grinned. "I like the way your mind works. But you do know she'll kill you when she finds out you didn't tell her? And she _will_ eventually find out."

"I'll deal with it then. I'd rather have her butchering me than have her dead. Call me mental, but that's just how it is."

"It takes a rare man to brave Hermione's wrath," said Ron sagely, shuddering.

Harry closed his eyes. "I should never have come home, Ron. It was seeing me today and knowing I was back in town that set her off…"

"Cheer up, mate," said Ron bracingly. "It's not your fault. Everything isn't always your fault, you know. Besides, you said it yourself; she can't do anything." But when Harry made no reply, Ron sobered up, still looking a little pale, and watched him for a moment. Harry could almost read his thoughts, and knew what he was going to ask before his mouth formulated the question. "Harry?" he said tentatively. "_Didn't_ you mean what you said to Hermione? Don't—don't you think Narcissa was just making empty threats, because she really can't do anything?"

Harry swallowed. "No," he said at last, very heavily. "I think she meant every word. Why the bloody hell do you think I'm so scared?"

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**TBC.**

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	5. A Masquerade

**Disclaimer: **I don't, of course, own any of this. JK Rowling/Warner Brothers do. I do own David and Belle, though. The brief snippet of lyrics involved in this chapter is from "Phantom of the Opera" (which is a movie/musical everyone ought to watch or go see at least once, because it's absolutely incredible!).

**Summary: **Broken after the war, Harry left. Now, two years later, he's finally found the strength to return, only to discover that old sins have long shadows…

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**Old Sins**

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**Chapter Five: _A Masquerade_**

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The following morning, when Hermione was safely at work and David safely with Mrs. Weasley (they had decided not to tell her, either), Harry and Ron gathered together several people they could trust: Lupin, Tonks, the twins, Luna, Ginny, Neville—and sent messages to McGonagall and Hagrid and let them know what the situation was; Harry's message to McGonagall was especially explicit. Once the others were grouped together, Harry, with Ron's help, told them exactly what had happened with Narcissa.

The twins wanted to hunt her down and skewer her on a hot poker. Tonks wanted to scalp her. Ginny and Luna wanted to take Hermione and David to Tibet. Neville had no words, but looked extremely wide-eyed.

And Lupin looked worried, which unnerved Harry more than anything.

"What is it?"

"I think you should tell Hermione, Harry."

"It would frighten her half to death—you know that. She wouldn't be able to sleep, and she'd be so worried about David that—well—look, I know what it's like to not have a normal life. We all do. Hermione's finally managed to build one with David, and I'd rather not shatter that just yet."

"Yes," Lupin admitted, with a sad sigh, "But all this subterfuge…"

Harry wasn't entirely sure what Lupin meant by this, but he picked up on something he wasn't sure he liked. "What are you talking about?" he asked quickly. "Is Hermione keeping something from me? Are _you_?"

Ron gave Tonks a despairing look that said clearly 'he isn't thick, you know'. Harry thought this was a bit rich, considering Ron was not the sharpest tool in the box.

"What's going on?" he asked coldly. "What are the lot of you not telling me?"

"Nothing, mate," said Ron, his ears turning so red they were fast beginning to resemble Dobby's favorite pair of socks.

"You're a lousy liar, you know that?"

"Crumpets," said Luna knowledgeably. "They're stale."

"That's probably all it is, Harry," said George with a loud laugh, with a very 'you know what Luna's like' look. "At least, _I_ don't know anything about all these secrets. For all we know, Harry, Hermione could be getting married. Maybe she wanted to spring it on you as a surprise, but now Ron and Remus have ruined it… besides," he added, a little too hastily for Harry's peace of mind (he narrowed his eyes suspiciously again), "Don't we have more important things to discuss?"

"Yes, we do," said Lupin very gently. "Harry, I won't lie to you. I'm terribly concerned about this. Narcissa Malfoy… it isn't good news."

Harry's suspicion vanished in a flash.

"You agree with me, don't you?" he said quietly. "That she's in absolute earnest."

"Narcissa is nearly mad with grief and hate, Harry," said Lupin gravely, "And while we can all pity her for what has driven her to this—"

"Speak for yourself," said Fred with a scowl. "_I_ don't pity her."

"—We must nonetheless remember that she was always a gifted witch, one who was well-versed in the Dark Arts, and a woman who is undoubtedly extremely dangerous to Hermione, David, and to you, Harry," Lupin finished, calmly ignoring Fred's interjection, having put up with the like for several years now.

Neville finally spoke up. "But Harry's one of the best wizards alive!"

"And he's picked up all those cool tricks from Bulgaria," put in Ron, "Just the other day, he showed me how to cast a spell without moving either your lips or your wand—no _Malfoy_'s a match for him! He's defeated You-Know-Who! And Hermione's not exactly weak, either."

"Hermione is extremely gifted," Lupin acknowledged, "And no one's denying Harry's power. Narcissa is nowhere near as powerful or as clever as Voldemort was, nor has she buckets of Horcruxes behind her. However, she has one advantage Voldemort never did and that Harry doesn't have: she has _nothing_ to lose. That, in my opinion, makes for a very dangerous threat indeed."

"Don't make light of it, Remus," Tonks said with a weak laugh, "They might not take you seriously here!"

"Tonks, does your mother know anything about where she may be?"

Tonks shook her head sadly. "I dunno, Harry. Mum hasn't seen Aunt Cissy in years; they all sort of fell apart because Mum stayed in close contact with Sirius and because Mum married my dad. She doesn't know anything, and I know she'd speak up if she did, because she knows how much this matters and she wouldn't want to protect that scheming witch! Believe me, she's no family of _mine_!"

She sounded so much like Sirius for a moment, all ferocity and indignation, that Harry, who missed his godfather dreadfully still, almost smiled.

Almost.

He rubbed his face wearily. Did it never end? He had spent most of his life either running from or fighting Voldemort, and now, the Dark shadow hadn't quite left him, had it? Would he be haunted forever, followed and stalked by evil and good alike because he was _Harry Potter_? Far worse, would the ones he _loved_ be forever hunted for it, until it claimed them?

But when, a week later, there was no word or movement from Narcissa Malfoy, everyone began to relax just a little bit.

Saturday, the day of the masquerade ball at the Patils', dawned sunnier than the previous week had been, and Harry, forcing logic to overpower his nerves, was able to look forward to the evening with a bit of hope. However, he viewed the night with mixed feelings. On the one hand, he didn't relish being enmeshed in a crowd. On the other… well… he would be _masked_.

"Ron, that's the doorbell," said Ginny, at about five o' clock in the evening; "Ron, that's the doorbell. Ron, that's—"

"I heard you, Ginny!"

"That was a hint, Ron, one that subtly begs that you will move your lazy backside off that sofa and open the wretched door so that I don't have to lose Luna, who happens to be holding the pins in my dress in place."

Harry glanced up from his book, smirking to himself at Ginny's girlish behavior. Luna was indeed helping her get her dress just right for the evening, in the middle of the living room, but Luna's help invariably took twice as long as help from anyone else. Hermione had been Ginny's first choice, but Hermione was tied up at a meeting at Hogwarts and wouldn't be back for another hour, at least.

Ron sighed and went to answer the front door. A moment later, David came stumbling into view, toddling unsteadily along, and cast himself at Harry's leg, hugging it fondly. "Hawwy!"

"Are you sure you can't take care of him, Ron?" Lupin asked, following David into the room with an anxious Ron at his side. "I've got to meet Scrimgeour right away, or I'd keep him with me a little longer."

"Ginny, Luna and me promised the Patils we'd go early and help set up," said Ron.

"Who's supposed to be watching David tonight?" Harry asked.

"Charlie Weasley," said Lupin, smiling. "He hurt his back in Romania last week and came home for a break, and he wants a quiet night at home with his niece and honorary nephew. He's more than capable," Lupin assured Harry. "The Burrow has its own magical protection, too."

Harry nodded. "Well, I can take care of him now if you like," he said. "The rest of you can go ahead with whatever you need to."

"I think that's an excellent idea," said Luna serenely, trying to attach a bow to David's hair, much to his disgust, "Harry can stay with David, and wait until Hermione gets home, and then they can both get ready and can drop David off at the Burrow before coming to the masquerade… _paper faces on parade_," she sang suddenly, making everyone start.

No one begged to be enlightened as to the origin of this musical outburst, and Harry hastily acquiesced to Luna's depiction of his immediate future.

"David needs a bath before you take him to Charlie, Harry," Lupin told him.

Harry scowled. "I know how to take care of a kid."

Lupin grinned. "I have no doubt you do. You would make a wonderful father, Harry, I've always thought so. Whatever James's flaws were during school, he was a transformed man as a husband and father. Remarkable, really. I can already see the same sort of changes manifesting themselves in you, after all the time you've spent with David."

Ron was gaping at Lupin. Even Luna and Ginny looked surprised. Harry, for his own part, was rather taken apart. "Er—thanks," he said.

"You're welcome," said Lupin, with a benign twinkle, and left.

"That man," said Ron darkly, "Is up to something."

When Harry asked him to explain this statement, he became inordinately interested in the safety pin holding Ginny's dress in place. A few minutes later, he, Luna and—after removing her dress and temporarily Vanishing it—Ginny, had left. Harry was left alone with an excitable little boy who kept showing signs of inching towards the television.

Harry grinned inwardly. Hermione was probably regretting her fit of generosity in buying the TV, now that her son, one of her best friends, and one of her close female friends—and said best friend's girlfriend—had grown rapidly addicted to it.

"What do you want to watch, David?" Harry asked, getting up from the desk.

David toddled solemnly to the video cabinet and picked out the one at the very top, showing it to 'Hawwy'. "White mask," he declared with a heart-melting pair of puppy eyes and a smile that revealed that he had almost all of his teeth.

"_Phantom of the Opera_ it is," Harry said, popping the video in. "And don't give me that look. Merlin, your eyes are just like your mother's."

"You wike Momma?"

"I like her plenty," said Harry, "And I don't deserve her, either."

David pondered this in silence—or he could merely have been chewing on his thumb, for all Harry knew—and, once Harry had settled himself on the sofa, promptly climbed into his lap as if he owned it. Harry couldn't help grinning, and watched the boy for a few minutes, before shifting his attention to the TV screen.

The movie was good. Harry personally thought it was less effective than it could have been because it was, after all, a mere recording of a West End show, but a few things caught his attention. When they reached the masquerade scene—it had begun to get dark outside, and he knew he would have to turn it off and start getting dressed—he found he couldn't turn his eyes away.

_Masquerade,_

_Paper faces on parade_

_Masquerade,_

_Hide your face _

_So the world will never find you._

Long after he turned off the TV and had put David in for a bath, he found those few words echoing over and over in his head. _Hide your face so the world will never find you… _he smiled a little bitterly, watching his own blurred reflection in David's bathwater.

Wasn't that what he'd been doing for two years? Hiding, so that the world wouldn't find him? And now, now that he had finally found the courage to come back and face it, the dark side of that world had found him again.

But not tonight. Tonight would be his masquerade.

And the world would _not_ find him tonight.

…

…

…

Ron cannoned through number twelve, Grimmauld Place, and had almost reached te kitchen when he promptly tripped over a rather rubbery greenish creature. He spluttered and inched upward, rubbing his bruised elbows.

"Dobby!" he roared. "What's the idea?"

"Dobby is sorry he upset Weazy," said Dobby contritely, grinning his toothy grin at Ron, "But Dobby wanted to speak to Weazy alone, before Weazy went to the masquerade ball that everyone is talking about…"

"I'll let you talk to me if you stop calling me 'Weazy'," said Ron in a disgruntled tone of voice, "And if you tell me where that box of chocolates Luna bought is. We forgot to take them with us—Parvati and Padma's birthday present—and I came back for it. Has Harry left already?"

Dobby whizzed around so fast he looked like a blur, and Ron closed his eyes to avoid being sick. He opened them to be handed the box of chocolates. He thanked Dobby, who said, "Harry Potter has left, yes, and taken little David with him."

"What did you want to say, Dobby?" Ron asked, stuffing the box of chocolates into the pocket of the coat he had thrown on over his clothes for the ball.

"Dobby wants Weaz—Ron Weasley's help."

"With what? You finally going to ask Winky out on a date?"

Dobby ignored this distracted joke; he had heard it too many times. "Dobby wants Weaz—Ron Weasley's help in bringing true happiness back to number twelve, Grimmauld Place."

Ron turned around, now giving Dobby his full attention. "Sorry, did someone _die_ while I was out or something?" he demanded, thoroughly perplexed by Dobby's pronouncement, and resisting the urge to laugh at the house-elf's earnest, eager expression.

"Ron Weasley must have noticed that Harry Potter is not happy, and that Hermione Granger is not happy, either."

"Ron Weasley had sort of noticed it, yeah," Ron admitted uncomfortably, "But it isn't his—bloody hell—_my_ business. Or yours, Dobby. I want nothing more than to see both my friends happy again, but the fact is, I owe them too much to try and interfere. I make a mess of most things, and I don't want to make a bloody mess of this. The last time I interfered, look at what happened! It all went to the dogs, it did. And I know what you're thinking. You want to get them back together, but I can't get involved, Dobby. I promised Hermione I'd keep her secrets and I privately swore that I would never mess up Harry's life again. I _can't_ help you."

Dobby considered him with large, protuberant eyes, even more earnestly. Then he said, with a sudden renewal of the toothy grin—Ron stepped back, a bit alarmed—"But Ron Weasley won't _stop_ Dobby if Dobby puts his plan into action?"

Ron grinned. "Oh, no. You're fair game. I won't stand in your way."

…

…

…

"Have you seen Hermione anywhere?"

It was the third time Harry had asked the question. The first time had been to Ron, via Floo Powder, when Hermione had not returned to the house. Harry had been dangerously near panicked, until an owl arrived from Hermione, telling him that she was going straight to the ball from Hogwarts, having run late, and would be mind dropping David off at the Burrow?

Hugely relieved, Harry did just this, and had then gone on to the masquerade at the Patils' beautiful Victorian house. He had found Lupin quite by accident—the werewolf mask sort of gave it away—and had asked him where Hermione was, only to be told Lupin had last seen her by the punch bowl.

He now asked Parvati.

"Harry?" she blinked, peering at him, trying to see past his Gryffindor lion's mask.

"Yes," he admitted reluctantly; he would have to transfigure his mask as soon as possible. "Have you seen her?"

"Hello to you too, Harry," she said, looking torn between amusement and indignation at being thus ignored. "Actually, I haven't seen her, but Padma told me she ran into her a little while ago. Would you like to dance?" she asked brightly, looking up at him with beautiful dark eyes through a make-up mask she told him was of Sita (he wasn't sure who Sita was, but assumed it was part of Parvati's Indian heritage).

Harry laughed. "Dance? Didn't you learn anything from the Yule Ball?"

Parvati laughed as well. "Oh, right. Thanks for the warning, Harry, I'll put out a bulletin." She smiled and looked amused as he pulled off his mask and wiped sweat off his forehead. "Why are you so interested in finding Hermione anyway? I didn't know you two were so close."

"We're best friends, Parvati," said Harry dryly, uncertain of how to answer a question posed with such a mischievous twinkle.

"Oh. Of course. Is that all?"

"Yes!"

"All right, Harry. Have fun."

Rather belatedly, Harry remembered how many people had always seemed certain that there was more than friendship between him and Hermione. Cho, Krum, Malfoy sometimes, Ron, Slughorn, _Crookshanks_—even Professor McGonagall, for heaven's sake!

Had they all seen something he had missed for so long? He couldn't deny he hadn't been able to leave her behind completely in the time he'd been gone… her ghost had followed him for two years… and he was still drawn to her, still attracted to her voice and laugh and cleverness and warmth, all those qualities that made Hermione so wonderful, even if she wasn't beautiful like Fleur or Cho or Ginny… he was still attracted to _her_…

Rather darkly, he transfigured his mask into that of a pirate, put it back on, and disappeared back into the hordes of people. He recognized a few here and there, but could barely distinguish who some of them were, especially not the ones glued together at the lip… hip… _both_.

Where _was_ she?

Then, even as the potent scent of punch drifted around him, making him feel a little giddy, and the music played softly in his ears, he saw her.

She was dressed in a simple blue dress, and looked lovely, her brown hair twisted up into a knot as it had been at the Yule Ball. Her mask was of no particular character or genre, just a simple glittery eye mask that covered most of her face in an artful way, making her entirely unrecognizable. Harry smiled faintly. If he wasn't entirely mistaken, he had a feeling he wasn't the only one shadowed from the world tonight.

He moved towards her, almost involuntarily, and approached her. Very gently, he touched her shoulder.

"Hi," he said quietly.

She turned and looked at him, eyes wide behind the slits of the mask, and he felt as though she was looking into him, seeing everything he had hidden from the rest of the world, seeing the real _him_.

"Are you all right, Harry?" She always knew. She could always tell.

"For the first time in so long, I think I am." Before he could stop himself, his heard his own voice, low and husky and vibrant with emotion he hadn't let himself feel in years. "You see me, Hermione. From the day we met in that bloody train, you saw me. You didn't see Harry Potter. You've never seen the Boy Who Lived, the Chosen One, or any of that, like they did. You see just… _me_."

She looked down and he thought he saw a faint sparkle of tears in her eyes. He gently prodded her chin up again. She smiled weakly. "How did you know it was me anyway?" she asked, gesturing to the mask over her eyes.

He smiled. "I could be blind and still find you in a crowd, Hermione. I see you, too."

"Yes," she admitted. "It took you a while, but you _do_ see me."

"It took me too damned long."

"Harry—" there was something in her voice, something warm and inhibited and low that decided him, made him certain that this was what he wanted and what she wanted.

"Come with me," he said, and took her hand. She obeyed without question, following him as she'd done so many times, no matter what the dangers or the risks or the losses that were sure to come.

Only this time, his heart pounded harder than it ever had, and she held tighter than she'd ever done before. This was the most dangerous one yet, the one where there was the most to lose, and still, he knew, in that one moment of clarity, that tonight, he would risk it all.

He led her out of the room, out into the cool gardens, into an alcove between two trees. "One night," he said huskily. "One night removed from reality, and nothing exists except you and me, and if we can pretend that's all there is, Hermione, then maybe, finally, just this once, we'll find what we've been missing for so long. If you don't want that, I'll let you go and we can go back to being friends. We'll forget…"

"Shut up, Harry," she breathed, and kissed him. "I've never forgotten."

The masks were discarded fairly quickly—they had never needed them around each other—and he touched her, touched her smooth glowing skin as it shone in the moonlight, and felt her tremble under his fingers, her mouth quivering, warm and alive and wonderful against him. He nuzzled into her neck, kissing down the line of her throat, as she gripped his shoulders and moved against him in a way that made his heart race and his mind rapidly fray at the edges of its control.

"Why did you leave me?" she whispered between kisses, her fingers unbuttoning his shirt, trembling slightly in a way that tugged at his heart.

He smiled weakly, tracing her collarbone. "Fear, I guess," he muttered. "It felt too good, too right, Hermione. Everything good and right always went away, and I didn't want you to go away. I couldn't have lived with that, coped with that… so I went away instead. It didn't make sense, it doesn't make sense even now, but it just… happened."

She touched his mouth, silencing him. "One night," she reminded him. "Nothing else exists. We just need to _know_…"

"Let's go home," he breathed in her ear.

Hands intertwined, they returned to the house they had both found home in, and found themselves in his bedroom, fire and skin and heat and tenderness rushing through them and between them, binding them together in its own not-so-visible tendril of magic. They reached for each other, starving and wracked with emotions too intense to describe.

Nothing had ever felt so right.

And when it was over, and he lay awake and watched her sleep beside him, as he had done once more, he felt the horrible sensation of world returning.

Slowly, stealthily, it crept back like a nasty little snake, slipping back into his thoughts and his heart. The wild-eyed, blond image of Narcissa trembled deep in his mind. Fear shot through him, once more, and, involuntarily, he tightened his hold on Hermione. He couldn't lose her. He couldn't lose her and David. He couldn't let that happen.

Somewhere along the way, he had fallen in love. It was the worst mistake he could have made, because he should have _known_, should have remembered, that Harry Potter couldn't afford to love.

Tears crept down his face, salty and silent and secret.

Narcissa had to believe he didn't love them. He _couldn't_ love them, he couldn't let himself. Because as long as he did, she would know and she would come after them and take them from him. She would never stop until she did, he knew that. Love was a powerful weapon—of all people, he knew that—and when coupled with grief… this time, _she_ was the one holding that weapon.

He couldn't love her.

Very slowly, though it hurt more than anything else, he released his hold on Hermione.

The world, stark and cruel, had found him again.

…

…

…

**TBC.**

…


	6. Pensieve

**Disclaimer: **I don't, of course, own any of this. JK Rowling/Warner Brothers do. I do own David and Belle, though.

**Summary: **Broken after the war, Harry left. Now, two years later, he's finally found the strength to return, only to discover that old sins have long shadows…

**A/N: **Thank you for all the positive comments and constructive criticism so far! There's no greater motivation to write (for me, anyway) than hearing that people love what I've already written. So thank you!

…

…

**Old Sins**

…

…

**Chapter Six: _Pensieve_**

…

…

…

"So what now, Harry?" Hermione said quietly, a little stiffly. "Do we just… forget?"

She watched him, carefully watching the reaction playing across his face. She wished she could read his mind. She wished she was the girl of three years before, who would have seized him and shaken him and told him that she wouldn't let him go, because she loved him, and that was that. But she couldn't do that now. She couldn't face another rejection… not like last time… no one was _that_ strong.

Their nights—both of them—had been magical. There was no other word for it. She was not about to ruin this one as well. Because when everything else was gone, she would have this, a physical mark of love, and believe it ran deeper.

"Yes," said Harry at last. "You know… I can't…"

"I know," she said gently, not so much disappointed as she was just bleak.

She had known this would happen, had accepted it from the moment he had whispered 'one night' in her ear. Their lives could not afford permanence. She couldn't afford to risk everything on him, not when she couldn't know whether or not he really loved her… the way she needed to be loved…

Harry seemed a bit surprised that she'd shown no anger, and his eyes softened in a faint smile. "You're my best friend, you know that? I hate that I keep messing that up."

"You haven't messed it up," Hermione assured him, taking a step back from him, afraid his touch would undo her. "But… don't, Harry. We can't do this again. I need to move on. I need to build my own life… for the first time, I want a life that isn't part of you." _Liar._ Her life would never be separate from his… she would go mad if it was… as she'd nearly done when he'd left… "I don't love you," she added defiantly.

She saw the confusion, the quick flare of hurt in his eyes, before it died, and then he nodded slowly. He swallowed. "I'm sorry I made things so hard for you," he said, and he sounded sincere. "You _do_ deserve a chance to move on. So…" he smiled, and it was the bravest smile she'd ever seen. "Still best friends?"

"Still best friends," she confirmed, smiling back, but she made sure there was a hint of coolness in her smile. She had to keep him away, or he would slip in too deep.

She left his room after that, wearing her masquerade dress—there was nothing else to wear in his room, except his clothes, and she couldn't cope with that kind of intimacy now. She bumped into Ron in the hallway, and he started to grin, but she silenced him with a glare and his face fell almost comically. Very calmly, she walked past him to her bedroom, shut the door behind her, and began to cry.

Hermione covered her face with her hands and let the tears trickle through her fingers. Why did it have to be so _complicated_? Why couldn't she be braver and face how much she still loved him? Why couldn't she move on, leave him behind her with the ease with which he had left her behind? She deserved better than this, and so did he. They deserved a chance to be happy, and that clearly wasn't going to happen with one another…

But he cared. She was sure of that, and it wasn't merely platonic. But was it another Cho or Ginny thing? He didn't love her, not the way she loved him. If he did, he would never have left her.

And David… Hermione felt a fresh wave of tears.

How would she ever keep her son from Harry? She had never told him anything about his father—he was a year and a half, for heaven's sake—but he had picked up on something; Lupin had been right. David adored Harry, _loved_ him, and knew—she was sure—that Harry was his father. How could she stop him from saying 'Daddy' one day, instead of 'Hawwy'? It was incredible that he hadn't already done it.

And what, she asked herself, were Harry and Ron always whispering about? Everyone seemed to know something—or perhaps she was simply paranoid—and they weren't telling her about it. What was going _on_?

"Hermione?"

She looked up. Luna had somehow come into her room unnoticed. Hermione smiled weakly, through her tears. She didn't mind Luna seeing her cry. Their friendship had gotten off to a rocky start in her fifth year, but she had very soon come to trust and respect Luna as much as the younger girl had come to do the same with her. Since their sixth year, they'd grown very close.

"Hermione, are you all right?" said Luna very softly. "I came to tell you that Charlie just brought David back—he's downstairs—but I can leave…"

"No," said Hermione, sniffing, "Don't go… I don't mind…"

Luna sat down on the bed and put her arm around Hermione, squeezing gently. "I wish there were Skimdens in Britain," she said in her musical voice, "They're very good at taking away pain, I've heard. Of course, it might only work for physical wounds, but it's worthy a try, isn't it? He loves you," she added abruptly, and Hermione looked up in surprise; "If you'd just let me hit him with a Blackbone feather, everything would be all right."

"Thanks, Luna," said Hermione, wiping her face grittily, "But I don't think you're right about this. Do you know what everyone's been talking about for the past week?" she asked, as abruptly as Luna had brought up Harry. "Every time I walk into a room, people stop talking."

Luna's already protuberant eyes widened even more. "I think they're planning a surprise for your birthday," she said.

"My birthday is in September, Luna."

Luna lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Maybe the Conspiracy Beetles have infected them," she suggested.

And in spite of everything, Hermione laughed.

In the next room, Harry heard her laugh and smiled a little. He had been so afraid that his necessary choices would hurt her terribly, and while it hurt him a little that she had taken it so well, he was relieved. He had to let her go, so that she could move on, so that he wouldn't keep messing up her life as he'd done for nine years now, and so that Narcissa would never be able to find the love between them that she was so certain existed.

They would be safe, all of them.

What if he left? The thought, as soon as it flickered into his mind, was at once terrible and alluring. What if he left London again, began to wander once more? What better way was there to keep Hermione and David safe?

_Staying_, a sarcastic voice told him, and it was right. He couldn't leave. Not again. He couldn't bear the thought of not seeing his friends… her… every day. He could keep them safe as long as he stayed close, but not too close.

He let out a frustrated groan, and savagely thought of all the people who believed him a hero.

He would have gladly exchanged places with any of them.

Harry went downstairs after getting dressed, but he wasn't very hungry, so he skipped breakfast and reached for his coat instead.

"Where are you going this early on a Sunday?" Ron asked him sleepily from the table, where he was sharing a massive pot pie with Neville, who looked just as sleepy.

"Hogwarts," said Harry. "Got to pick up some old NEWT papers from McGonagall; she wants me to look them over and figure out how many of the questions I know the answers to. Responsibilities," he added with a sigh. "If I'd known becoming an Auror would be this hard…"

"When's your first test?" Neville asked curiously.

"Tuesday. Stealth and Concealment. It ought to go okay; I've got my Invisibility Cloak, haven't I?" He picked up an orange from the fruit bowl and walked towards the kitchen door. "I'll see you two later."

"Hey, what happened last night, then?" Ron asked with a trace of mischief.

Harry looked back and smiled. "Mind your own business, you prat."

"Cheers, mate. See you later."

Harry waved over his shoulder and left the house to the sound of Ron and Neville's laughter echoing behind him. His friends had coped remarkably well after the war, he reflected, especially Neville, even after having to kill Bellatrix Lestrange. Did that make them stronger than him? Or was it all right that he still wrestled with his demons, because his demons had, after all, been darker?

He Apparated to Hogwarts, and walked through the gates. He was accosted by Hagrid halfway up the grounds, who demanded to know whether it was true about Narcissa Malfoy and whether Hermione and David were all right. Harry assured him on both counts, refused his offer of rock cakes with a grin, and continued on his way to the castle.

He passed a few students on his way to the gargoyles outside the Headmistress's office, but none, fortunately, recognized him. He reached the gargoyle office.

"_Sherbet Lemon_."

The gargoyles jumped aside, and he made his way up the winding passage to what was now Professor McGonagall's office. However, when he entered the room, it was empty, and all the portraits on the wall—save one—were asleep.

"Good morning, Harry," said Dumbledore from his painting, "Bright and early, are we?"

"Hi, Professor," said Harry, grinning up at him and feeling a tug of emotion.

"Minerva had to deal with some problem involving a student accidentally transfiguring his own ears into goldfish," said Dumbledore, beaming, "I am grateful I no longer have to sort out situations like that. She, however, told me to tell you to… er… make yourself at home."

Harry followed the twinkle in Dumbledore's eye, and saw his old Pensieve, lying out of his cupboard and casting a bright shimmering light against the wall. Harry narrowed his eyes slightly. Dumbledore evidently wanted him to go to the Pensieve and take a look. But what did he intend? What was his old Headmaster up to?

But as the approaching the glowing basin, Harry felt a sudden clarity. He knew exactly what he wanted to do with it.

He reached for his wand.

Silver trailed away from his head, a fine shining thread, and Harry placed his own memory into the Pensieve. Then, as he peered into it, he felt himself falling forward and descending through the black portals of the magic, to land—with a thump—in his own bedroom nearly two and a half years before.

He saw himself, just slightly younger, lying in a fitful sleep. Then the door burst open and the younger Harry jerked up.

Ron and Lupin entered the room, carrying an unconscious Hermione between them.

"Harry, can we use your bed?" Lupin said, and without waiting for a response, put Hermione down on the bed. Harry hastily moved out of the way, but not before an expression of white, blood-drained horror crossed his face.

He leaned over his unconscious friend. "What happened to her?"

"We were out shopping—" Ron began.

"At eleven o' clock in the night?" Harry demanded angrily.

Ron fidgeted. "Hermione wanted to do something special for you this Christmas, Harry, to cheer you up, you know. So we went out together—I tried telling her it was a bad idea, but you know how she is when she thinks of something—"

"I thought I told you that you were supposed to watch her," said Harry on a near-snarl. "Ron, I _trusted_ you to take care of the others while I'm locked in those Dreamless Sleeps, trying to break into Voldemort's mind—"

Lupin was bending over Hermione, but he looked up now. "Ron did his best, Harry," he said gently, "A Death Eater ambushed them and Hermione was struck down while defending him. Ron brought her back here immediately, at great risk to himself."

The younger Harry let out a sad sigh. "Sorry," he said to Ron. "I'm just… you know…"

Ron nodded. "I'd be angry, too," he said with a faint grin. "But she'll be all right, won't she?"

"Certainly," said Lupin reassuringly, "Hermione defended herself well, and whatever the curse the Death Eater used on the two of you was, she managed to minimize it to a mere Stunner. It wasn't a Killing Curse; I suspect they wanted to take you both in and siphon out everything you know about Harry."

Harry was watching Hermione. "This is mad," he burst out suddenly. "I'm not going to let everyone I care about get hurt because Voldemort wants to get to me!"

Lupin laid a hand on his shoulder. "He will pay, Harry," he said simply. "This _will_ end. I'm going to go and alert Professor McGonagall and Aberforth about this latest attack. Keep an eye on her, will you, Harry? She ought to wake in a few moments, but she may be alarmed if she wakes alone and doesn't know what happened after she was struck."

"Yeah," said Harry, looking rather pale still, "I'll take care of her."

Lupin smiled and left the room, and Ron was about to follow when the younger Harry said: "Hey, Ron? Sorry I shouted at you."

Ron hesitated and then came back to the bedside. "I think you should tell her how you feel, Harry," he said.

"What are you talking about?" said Harry, rather sharply.

"Look, it's fairly obvious—even to me—that you don't think of Hermione as just a best friend. Remember the Department of Mysteries? Neville told us about how upset you were, how he had to make you aware that she was still alive. You never lose your head like that, Harry. Well, anyway," Ron shuffled his feet. "If you… like her… or whatever… I think you should say something."

"But I thought you—and she—" protested Harry weakly.

Ron looked puzzled for a moment, and then laughed. "Oh, that's over. I'm… er…" he turned bright red and muttered something that sounded alarmingly like 'Luna' before stopping speaking entirely. Fortunately, the younger Harry still looked very shell-shocked by his earlier speech.

Harry opened his mouth, and closed it again. Opened it. Closed it. Ron grinned, obviously pleased with the effect he had produced, and made for the door.

"Ron?"

"Yeah?"

"Hermione has her own room. Why did you and Lupin bring her here?"

"We… er… didn't want her to be alone."

"And what are _you_, a pillar?"

"Sleepy, actually," said Ron promptly, and, with a mischievous smirk, marched out of the room, very pointedly closing the door behind him.

The older Harry, watching his younger self and Hermione on the bed, felt a tug of pain and longing as he saw the curiously tender expression flicker over the boy's face as he reached out and brushed hair off Hermione's forehead. Sighing, the younger Harry settled back against his pillows, with Hermione beside him, and watched her.

Some time later, slowly, she woke. She seemed perfectly healthy and all right as her eyes opened, only very confused.

"Harry?" she said carefully. "What am I doing here?"

He explained, in slightly curt tones. The tenderness had vanished, and was replaced by a fierce kind of anger. Hermione evidently saw it, and she smiled faintly. "You're angry that we were so careless. I'm sorry, Harry. I know it was stupid, but I honestly thought Diagon Alley would be safe, even so late. The twins said there's been no trouble there…"

"I don't care," he said. "Look, I want you to stop putting yourself in danger. I want you to stop risking yourself. I—I wish I could tell you to go home to your parents and stay out of this war—"

"Well, you can't," Hermione snapped, "I'm not leaving you!"

Harry let out a tired sigh. "I don't want to see you dead," he said, very quietly, "I couldn't cope with that."

And then—he wasn't sure how it happened—and the Harry watching was surprised by how unexpected and yet inevitable it was: but they were kissing, and Hermione had drawn herself close to him, and he was holding her. Harry, watching them, closed his eyes because he remembered exactly how it had felt, how it had seemed like this was such a long time coming.

He sliced off the next bit of memory, because that night was so deeply branded in his mind that he didn't need to relive it. But what he needed to do was see the end, that final moment…

He saw Hermione lean towards his younger self, and say, "I love you, Harry."

He saw his younger self stiffen, and knew exactly what he had thought.

_I can't let you. I can't love anyone, because they die._

"I'm sorry," he said out loud.

That was it: the moment Harry had needed to truly relive, to watch again, to play back like an old forgotten tape and observe once more. That moment when he had hurt her so terribly. He hadn't looked at her expression then, but he did now, and he saw the bitter sadness and yet, a strange understanding, on her face. He had hoped, then, as he had earlier that day, that she knew he was lying. But he saw in her eyes that she didn't. She had never known the truth.

_That_ was why she had let him go so easily… twice. She didn't know that he loved her. God, _he_ wasn't even sure sometimes. He couldn't, could he?

He stepped out of the memory, spinning back into Dumbledore—no, McGonagall's, he had to get used to that—office, and sat down weakly on one of the chairs. He was angry with himself, depressed, and in a way, relieved. He _wanted_ Hermione to be able to let him go. He wanted her _alive_, and happy, and if that meant he had to let her go, he could do it.

And yet, he was human. A part of him still wished…

He had never hated Death Eaters more.

The office door opened, and Professor McGonagall came in, carrying a thick folder. "Hello, Potter," she greeted him, "I do apologize for taking so long. I have old NEWT papers here, and you can peruse them at your leisure. Your theory tests are not until next month, is that correct?"

"It's more just a brush-up," said Harry distractedly, "Kingsley just wants to see how much theory I know. It's the practical stuff he's more concerned with."

"You'll do fine, I'm sure," Professor McGonagall assured him. She peered at him closely. "Are you quite all right, Potter?"

He nodded. "Thanks, Professor."

"Have a biscuit before you go," she said kindly.

He smiled then.

Funny how that happened. You could be miserable, and bitter, and angry, and bleak, but there were still little things in the world worth smiling at or laughing for. That was what made living so bearable, even when it ought not to be. That was what made coming back to London, and facing his past again, worth it.

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**TBC.**

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	7. Strike One

**Disclaimer: **I don't, of course, own any of this. JK Rowling/Warner Brothers do. I do own David and Belle, though.

**Summary: **Broken after the war, Harry left. Now, two years later, he's finally found the strength to return, only to discover that old sins have long shadows…

**A/N: **Sorry for how long this has taken me, and it's a slightly shorter chapter than usual. But when you have a job, it tends to be a little taxing on your time! I promise my next update will be a lot quicker.

After the past few scenes, I thought the story could use some humor and lightening of the mood, so the first part of this chapter is just that… it might be on the fluffy side, but, hey, I'm not perfect. People seemed to be so looking forward to Dobby's 'plan' that I couldn't hold off any longer :-) I hope you guys enjoy this!

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**Old Sins**

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**Chapter Seven: _Strike One_**

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As expected, Harry's Stealth and Concealment tests passed without incident, and as the grinning examiner informed him at the very end, he had received full marks for it. Flushing slightly with a long-forgotten pride, Harry had thanked him and returned home, exhausted, to find that his entire household had already somehow discovered how his tests had gone (Kingsley must have been busy), and were ready to celebrate.

Five bottles of Butterbeer, three of Mrs. Weasley's casseroles and treacle tarts, and a broken goblet later, Harry descended onto his bed and fell fast asleep. Below, he heard the sounds of Ron, the twins, and Neville still causing quite a stir. Luna and Hermione had gone to bed an hour earlier.

Ron and the twins had had a bad influence on Neville, Harry thought sleepily, before his eyelids closed for the next ten hours.

When he woke, however, it was to Hedwig prodding him gently, a rather disgusted look on her face.

"What is it?" Harry asked blearily. "What's the matter—oh, a letter—"

Struggling to keep his eyes open, deeply offended by the light streaming in through his window, he reached for the tiny scroll in Hedwig's beak. She hooted, gave his finger an affectionate nip, and soared out through the window again. Harry rubbed his forehead, where a splitting headache had already taken root, and opened the little scroll, wondering what new calamity had occurred.

His eyes popped open upon reading the contents of the short letter.

_Dear Harry Potter,_

_Oooh, baby, you are a hunk. I know I have done some not-so-nice things and have been too clever for my own good sometimes, and have made some mistakes, but I would like to fix things with you. I want your body and you want mine, because that is what teenage wizards (we are still teenagers, are we not?) do._

_Love is eternal. As that British author Something-Spear says, "A rose with any other name would still smell as sweet". So I could call you 'Baby' instead of 'Harry' and you will still smell of poppies in the summer. You are my Rosaline._

_Let us get married and be happy with David._

_All my love and body-desire,_

_Hermione Granger_

It took Harry several readings of this astonishing missive before its meaning fully penetrated his brain. His head reeled. _You are my Rosaline_?

He was perfectly aware that Hermione hadn't written this (for one thing, she knew who Shakespeare was!) and had he been less stupefied with disbelief, he would have found it hysterically funny. But if Hermione hadn't sent something this ridiculous—and she would sooner eat slugs than do so, he knew—who had? Ron, in some misguided attempt to play matchmaker again? No, not even Ron was that crude.

But Harry thought he knew someone who was just well-meaning yet ignorant enough to do something like this…

He marched to his door, forgetting that he wasn't wearing a shirt. He swung the door open only to bump into Hermione, who had just emerged from her own room, robe loosely tied around a not-quite-dressed frame.

"Er…" he stammered.

Hermione looked everywhere but at his bare chest. "Did you… er… happen to receive any interesting mail this morning?" she asked him.

For a wild moment, he was shocked. Had she sent it after all? But she let out a sudden laugh, catching sight of the look on his face. "Oh, Harry, don't be so utterly ridiculous! I got a letter, too. Here—" she flushed slightly pink, and held the letter in her own hands out, "You can read it. Let's swap…"

Harry took the letter she had received, and felt his face flush as he wondered what she might have thought had she ever considered he had written it.

_Dear Hermione Granger,_

_Babe, you rock my world. I dream of you every night, and feel a stirring in my loin cloth (that is the correct word, yes?). I would like to say that you have perfect upper feminine body parts, those things that Ron Weasley calls 'jingle bells'._

_I have often tried to be too heroic for my own good, dodging Bludgeons on the Quidditch field instead of wooing you, but that is all going to change. I can only beg your forgiveness and pray that you will not hold this grudge against me forever, because you and me, babe, we set the world on fire and I want to feel that stirring every day when I wake up with you (like last Saturday)._

_Love will not be vanquished, as Professor Dumbledore always said. I hope you will consider my earnest proposal, and not hold it against me that I do not know the real word for your jingle bells._

_Let us get married and be happy with David._

_All my love and body-desire,_

_Harry Potter_

It was too much. Harry could feel his shoulders shaking helplessly as he collapsed into laughter. A moment later, Hermione, having read 'her' writing sample, joined him, and the two of them stood half-dressed in the corridor and howled with laughter at what a certain occupant of their household had done.

"Oh, this is priceless," said Harry, wiping tears from his eyes, "You have to admit it's creative genius!"

Hermione was trying desperately to maintain a straight face. "I will admit no such thing, Rosaline," she said.

But this only made Harry laugh harder.

Ron and Luna appeared at their room doorway, Luna wide-eyed, Ron rumple-haired and decidedly grumpy and clutching a teddy-bear. "What the bloody hell do you two thing you're doing, making such a ruckus at this ghastly hour of the morning?" Ron demanded, obviously unaware that he was holding onto his stuffed toy.

"It's noon," said Hermione tartly.

"Yeah, what's your point?"

Luna surveyed the letters with interest. "Harry, I didn't know Hermione's pet name for you was 'Rosaline'," she commented.

Ron dropped the teddy-bear. "WHAT?" he demanded, evidently revolted.

Still chuckling, Harry thrust the two letters at him. Ron and Luna read them together, eyes widening more and more. Ron's grumpy expression had vanished in a flash and there was a growing disbelief and mirth on his face. Eventually, he had to sit down on the floor because he was laughing so hard.

"Jingle bells," he spluttered.

"Ron, I don't think it's nice to laugh at Harry and Hermione's love letters," said Luna in her dreamy voice, a touch of disapproval there, "If I could show them one of _yours_, you wouldn't find it so funny, would you?"

Neither Harry nor Hermione bothered to correct Luna's misapprehension, and they looked at each other with dancing eyes, in far better moods than they had been in a long time, as Ron continued to scream with mirth on the floor, slapping his thigh as he did so.

"Dobby!" Harry yelled.

Dobby appeared a second later, house-elf eyes wide and sheepish, wringing one of his many socks in his hands as he watched Harry and Hermione nervously. "Dobby can't stay long," he said hastily, "Dobby is busy chasing David around the living room because David took Miss Hermione's wand and got out of her room with it."

"_That's_ where it went!" Hermione gasped. "That boy! I've warned him about using my wand! He's magical enough without _intentionally_ casting spells!"

"Do you have anything to say, Dobby?" Harry asked him, valiantly controlling a twitching lip.

Dobby looked uneasy. "Is Dobby in trouble?"

"I just have one question."

"Yes, Harry Potter?" said Dobby, studying Harry with obvious trepidation.

Harry looked carefully at him. "Have you been watching teen films on American TV channels?" he demanded.

Dobby grinned toothily and vanished again. Hermione sniffed, her opinion of teen films all too clear. Ron was still laughing, but as Harry grinned after Dobby's retreating form, he collected himself enough to say: "Well, at least he cheered you both up," he pointed out. "You can't blame a house-elf for caring."

"That's true," Harry admitted, looking at Hermione.

She nodded. "I miss laughing with you, Harry," she said, unexpectedly, and he blinked, taken aback by her honesty. He saw Ron and Luna smile. Then Hermione added quickly, "I should run and get my wand, and find a suitable punishment for that wayward son of mine."

And she ran down the corridor almost as quickly as Dobby had.

"I could have told her to get dressed first," said Ron with a grin, but subsided when Harry shot him a look. "Right, sorry, she's your territory."

"She's—" Harry spluttered. "Go boil your head."

"After another six hours of sleep, mate. I'm framing these letters, by the way."

Harry grinned. "Yeah, I was hoping you would."

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…

"What do you mean, a _dentist_?" Harry demanded. "David's a year old, for heaven's sake, and he's got dozens of witches and wizards to fix any orthodontia problems he might have! Why do you want to take him to a dentist?"

"I told you, Harry," said Hermione wearily, "My father isn't very happy with me, and I've drifted so far apart from my parents," she added miserably, and he felt a pang of sorrow for her, "That when he _does_ make the effort to contact me and ask me for something, I try not to disoblige him. He just wants to look David's teeth over; even if they're not too pleased with me, my parents simply adore him and they don't see much of him because I come as part of the package deal…" she trailed off, looking away and packing up David's toys. "And David isn't a _year_ old," she added. "He's q year and a half. He has all his teeth, doesn't he?"

Harry was helping David into his baby-jumper, and didn't quite register this last bit. He looked up at Hermione, lifting David into his arms. "I'll come with you," he said.

"No!" Hermione blurted, looking horrified.

"Why not?"

"Harry—look—my father's not very pleased with you, either."

He was startled. "What're you talking about? I've met your dad before, and he seemed to like me fine!"

"Well, he did, but that was before… look, just please don't come along…"

"I'm coming," he said stubbornly.

There were several reasons why he was insistent upon this. For one thing, being near Hermione and David would help him keep an eye on them, make sure they came to no harm. For another, he wanted to be near them—as much as he told himself he should stay away, as hard as he tried to do just this, his willpower had just disintegrated. And for a third, he had a bizarre fantasy in his mind, of somehow making Mr. Granger see how much his daughter loved and missed him, and making him forgive her for being a single, unmarried mother.

And so, thwarted and nervous-looking, Hermione followed Harry and her son out of Number 12, Grimmauld Place, and they made their way towards Mr. Granger's practice three streets away, in central London. There was no need to Apparate; it was a lovely, crisp, cold day and truth be told, it was sometimes nice to pretend to be non-magical.

Muggles passing them on the street gave them indulgent smiles, obviously under the impression that they were seeing a young, happy family.

After one too many of these looks, Hermione got distinctly awkward. "So… er…" she said. "When's your next Auror test?"

"Tomorrow," said Harry, "Magical Disguises and Something… I can never remember…"

"Oh, look here's a shortcut," said Hermione, pointing to a rather lonely alley. They diverted off the main street, away from the well-meaning, smiling Muggles, and started down the alley, able to talk quite companionably again.

Harry's good mood didn't last.

"Momma! Hawwy!" cried David, tugging on Harry's collar and peering behind them, and there was a note of mild uneasiness in his young voice, "There's stwange wady behind us!"

Hermione frowned, turning. "What strange lady—?"

Harry's heart sank to the bottom of his shoes, because there was Narcissa Malfoy, her wand outstretched and her face stretched in an inhuman smile, advancing on them. There was no way they could run in time, and besides, Harry didn't run. He had to end this now.

He watched in horror as the wand pointed straight at Hermione. "_Avada—_"

"_Protego_!" Harry roared, before she could finish casting the curse.

Hermione reached for her wand, fired a Stunner, but Narcissa dodged it with an agility that seemed unnatural for someone of her mental state.

Harry was carrying a wailing David, and he had to shield the boy, but he also had to protect Hermione, who was fighting off a series of mad curses sent by Narcissa straight at her. He could see the horror and confusion on Hermione's face and could understand it: she didn't know why Narcissa was attacking _her_, instead of Harry.

He pointed his wand with a fierce rush of rage, and yelled, "_Expelliarmus_!"

The wand flew out of Narcissa's hand, and she was blasted back. She scrambled to her feet, and laughed sneeringly at him, promising that she would return, before she disappeared back onto the street. She had lost her wand, but Harry had no doubt that she would find another one.

He was shaking, and he cradled David close, trying to calm him down, while at the same time stumbling towards a whimpering Hermione.

But she backed away from him. "Tell me the truth, Harry! Tell me why she was trying to kill _me_!"

And so, holding a sobbing baby in his arms, and trying to hold a shaking girl, he found that he couldn't lie any longer, because his lie had put them both in grave danger when he'd only wanted to help. His voice shaking with anger, his teeth gritted, Harry told Hermione what Narcissa wanted.

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**TBC.**

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	8. A Dash of Levity

**Disclaimer: **I don't, of course, own any of this. JK Rowling/Warner Brothers do. I do own David and Belle, though.

**Summary: **Broken after the war, Harry left. Now, two years later, he's finally found the strength to return, only to discover that old sins have long shadows…

**A/N:** A lot of people have brought up the fact that Harry's really very dense to not realize by now that David's his son. But Hermione's _told_ him otherwise, quite specifically, so in spite of everyone's strange behavior and David's physical appearance, I think he just has no _reason_ to question what she told him.

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**Old Sins**

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**Chapter Eight: _A Dash of Levity_**

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Harry walked through the familiar halls, searching for the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. He felt tired and pale and drawn; he hadn't slept properly in a week, and he had a feeling he had failed his Magical Disguises test.

Hermione had been so furious after he had told her the truth about Narcissa—so furious that he hadn't told her before, and secretly, he suspected, terribly shaken—that she had packed a few things and left their house, going to stay at the Burrow for a few days. Harry knew he would never forget the look of fear on her face when he'd told her, the way her eyes darted in terror to David, afraid for _him_ and not for herself.

With Hermione gone for a week, Harry had felt more miserable by the day. He missed her, dreadfully, and what was even stranger, he missed David too. He wanted them back. He'd grown awfully attached to the little boy, and as for Hermione… he didn't even want to think about that…

Ron had made a well-meaning trip to the Burrow, with the sole intention of relaying Harry's desperate apology to Hermione (she wouldn't stay long enough in the same hundred yards as him for him to do it himself) and to point out to her that she and David would be much safer in Number 12. Harry had paced their drawing-room anxiously for all of thirty seconds, before Ron reappeared, looking terrified and sporting singed clothing.

"Mum," he had said weakly, "I forgot that we didn't… er… tell her either. She's not too happy, either."

Effectively, or so Harry gathered, the entire Weasley family was in disgrace with Mrs. Weasley (including Arthur, for not somehow reading his children's minds). She was, however, perfectly willing to continue chatting happily to Harry via Floo Powder each day, though Hermione was not. From Ron's recount of the thirty seconds he had spent at the Burrow, Harry divined that Hermione had let Ron know in no uncertain terms what she thought of him, Harry, Ginny, Fred, George, Lupin, Tonks, Bill, Neville and every other friend she possessed… for _lying_ to her about something that endangered her son's life. Only Luna went unscathed because Luna, apparently, was not "a normal person and can be excused things like this".

So for the past week, Mrs. Weasley hadn't been speaking to anyone except Harry, Hermione, David and (Harry assumed) Belle; and Hermione hadn't been speaking to anyone except Mrs. Weasley, David, Mr. Weasley and (Harry assumed) Belle.

Fred and George had been in despair.

"We're _hungry_!" Fred had moaned one evening. "We can't cook for ourselves!"

Harry had covered his face with his hands, and pushed his untouched meat pie towards Fred (specially sent to him by Mrs. Weasley with instructions not to give it to any of her children).

"I just want Hermione to talk to me again," he said bleakly.

George, unexpectedly, had a word of comfort. "Listen, mate," he said bracingly, "She has every right to be furious, and I know how upset that makes you, but you need to focus now. Figure out how to get rid of Narcissa, and at least you won't have to worry about Hermione and David being in danger anymore."

So Harry had done just that, poured every bit of effort into tracking down and finding Narcissa Malfoy. But none of his contacts, none of his numerous friends or well-wishers were able to help.

In the end, it was Lupin who saved the day.

"Harry!" he had exclaimed suddenly, jolting upright one evening after dinner at Number 12, "I've just remembered something! _Snape_!"

Ron gagged on his leftovers; it had been a long time since such an unpleasant thought had invaded the serenity of his mealtimes.

"Snape?" said Harry distastefully.

"Snape and Narcissa were very good friends before," Lupin explained, "Before the war and during it, when Snape was pretending to be a loyal follower of Voldemort. I'm sure he would have told Professor McGonagall if he knew where she was—he isn't sentimental enough to protect her—but maybe he can help you nonetheless."

Harry's insides recoiled from the very idea of speaking to the person he most loathed (good and evil didn't come into it at all). The last person he wanted to ask for help was Snape. But he _had_ cleared Snape's name before; Snape owed him one.

_And this is for Hermione and David_, he reminded himself fiercely, and was immediately resolved.

Thus, it came about that he returned to Hogwarts the following day, and went looking for Snape.

He found him just as his Defense Against the Dark Arts class had ended, and the students were filing out in obvious relief. Harry smiled to himself. Some things never changed. Snape would never be anyone's favorite teacher—unless there was someone like Draco Malfoy somewhere in these crowds.

He waited until the classroom was empty, and then went inside. Snape looked up and his expression changed when he saw Harry, going completely blank and cool. There was no emotion there at all.

"Potter," he said smoothly.

"Snape," said Harry. Snape's face flickered briefly, and Harry felt a twinge of distant satisfaction: he was no longer obliged to call this man "Professor" or "sir" and that felt good.

"What can I do for you?" said Snape coldly.

Harry watched him steadily, alert for any reaction. "I want to know about Narcissa Malfoy."

Snape looked genuinely startled, his black eyes flying upward to rest coldly on Harry's face. "Narcissa Malfoy is either dead or out of the country by now," he said, "I have not been in touch with her for two and a half years."

"Well, she's here," said Harry flatly, "And she wants to kill my fa—Hermione and her son, David."

Very shaken, he tried to pull himself together. Had he almost called them his '_family_'? I mean, yes they were, just as Ron and Luna and Hagrid and Lupin were his family, but he hadn't meant it that way and he knew it… he couldn't believe he'd let himself think such a thing… they could never be his.

"You are supremely delusional, Potter," Snape was saying with a faint sneer, a very familiar expression of contempt and pity mixed on his face. "Your time of grandeur is over; do not, I implore you, invent yourself an entirely new battle because nobody will have the patience for it."

Harry wanted to hit him, but his time away had taught him great control, and he said, very coldly and calmly, "How do explain the fact that she came up to me, and swore to make me suffer the way she suffered? She blames _me_ for what happened to Draco and her husband, you know that? She doesn't know, does she? And I didn't tell her, either… that it was _you_ who killed Draco."

"It was an _accident_," Snape snarled. "The boy got in the way—I couldn't stop it—"

Harry sighed. "Yeah, I know. I saw it, remember? But the fact is, she thinks it's because of _me_ that he died and that Lucius died and she wants to kill Hermione and David so that I'll feel what she feels. You owe it to me, for that and for what I did for you, to tell me what to know about her!"

"Potter, I'm warning you—she is not a happy woman, wherever she might be—"

"I do feel sorry for her," said Harry angrily, "But my pity does _not_ extend to the point where I'll hold back if she ever touches either of them again." And very briefly, he told Snape about the attack the previous week. Snape looked unmoved—of course he did, thought Harry bitterly, why would he care?—but there was something odd in his black, cold eyes, a flicker of something that made Harry certain that Snape knew something he didn't.

Finally, his former teacher and nemesis said, coldly and curtly, "You needn't worry about the boy."

"What?"

"David Granger. As long as Hermione Granger is alive, the boy is safe. I may not have seen her in many months, but I know Narcissa inside and out, and I can tell you quite categorically that Narcissa will not harm the boy until Miss Granger is dead first. It is _you_ she wants to hurt, not Miss Granger. While she may not be fond of her, she understands, as a mother who lost her son, what it would do to Hermione Granger if her son was taken away. She will kill her first, and then kill the boy. Never the other way around."

"Are you sure?" said Harry very quietly.

"Yes," said Snape brusquely. "Keep Hermione Granger alive, and the boy will be safe. He needn't concern you."

Harry gritted his teeth. "I want to find her."

"I cannot help you with that."

Harry was certain Snape was hiding something, that he did in fact have some idea of where Narcissa might be, but he only nodded and let it go. "Thank you," he said shortly. "I… er… I'll see you later."

This seemed like a decidedly odd way of ending a conversation with Snape, but Harry turned and left before Snape could say anything. He started down the corridor, intending to return home, when he suddenly realized that Hermione was _here_, at Hogwarts, that she worked here part-time and that since she'd moved out, this was the one place he could catch her…

He hurtled down the corridor to the first-year Transfiguration classroom, feeling happier than he had in days.

However, his entrance into the Transfiguration classroom was not a welcomed one. No sooner had he entered than Hermione had caught sight of him and narrowed her eyes angrily, and promptly ignored him.

"Do you have a minute?" he asked, plowing through regardless.

"No," she said coldly, "I'm teaching."

By this time, the first-years had noticed him and were talking in excited whispers. One boy finally burst out, as though he couldn't contain himself: "You—you're Harry Potter, aren't you?" he said excitedly. "Aren't you?"

"Adam," said Hermione reprovingly.

"But he is, Miss Granger! You and he are friends, we all _know_ that!"

"Have you come to help with the class, Mr. Potter? Are you going to stay?"

"Oooh, are you?"

Harry looked at Hermione. "Am I?" he asked quietly.

Hermione looked at the eager, overjoyed faces of her young students. He could see that she knew they would be crestfallen if she asked him to leave, and he saw that that thought made her decide not to. "Yes," she said coolly, "He's staying. But I want your attention on your work—that includes you, Adam—and if anyone so much as looks as _Mr. Potter_ for one minute more than necessary, I'll put this entire class in detention."

"Yes, Miss Granger," the class chorused, beaming at her. It was plain that they were all very fond of her.

Harry moved to the front of the class to where Hermione stood. "I need to talk to you," he said.

"It'll have to wait," she said coldly, "I'm busy."

"It's about David."

She stiffened, and turned to her class. "Read chapter eight of your books, all right?" she told the class. "I'll be back with you in a minute. Harry and I have something to discuss."

The entire class watched them move to a corner of the classroom, avidly, as though they hoped the two of them would start snogging right away. Hermione firmly frowned at them until they'd turned to their books, and then fixed icy brown eyes on Harry. "What do you have to say?"

He told her, word for word, what Snape had said. "He's safe," he finished gently, delighted to see the way the worry lines and shadows in her eyes lifted almost at once, "As long as you keep yourself out of Narcissa's way, David's in little or no danger at all."

"Thank you for telling me," said Hermione.

He caught her wrist before she moved away. "Hermione—look, I know you're not happy with me, and I'd have been furious if it had been me—but _please_ don't be angry anymore. It was a stupid thing to do, to not tell you, but I just didn't want you to worry. I wanted to spare you whatever I could, and while that was presumptuous and silly of me, I just… I'm _sorry._ Just… just please come back home. We need you, all of us. I need David, and _I_ need you."

Hermione stared at him for a long, long time, brown eyes softer and warmer and flickering over his face carefully. She looked constrained, as though she was keeping something deep inside her. "You really care that much about David, Harry?" she asked him.

"Of course I do," he said, and he meant it, "And I care about you, too."

She was silent for another moment, and then she nodded, with the faint beginning of a smile in her eyes. "I'll come home," she said at last.

"You _live_ together?" a student shrieked from behind them.

Harry and Hermione spun around to see that the entire class had been eavesdropping on their conversation the entire time.

"Are you going to get married?"

"Can we all come for the wedding, Miss Granger?"

Harry couldn't help it; he began to laugh. A split second later, Hermione joined in. "Detention!" she told her class, but as she was laughing while saying it, it was safe to bet that no one would turn up for it. It was several moments later before peace could be restored and Harry and Hermione could assure the class, while blushing madly, that they were not together and not getting married; they merely lived together—along with four other living things (Ron, Luna, David and Dobby).

"Oh," said Harry, "And could you persuade Mrs. Weasley to talk to her family again? Fred and George claim that they're going hungry."

Hermione laughed. "I think I may be able to work something out."

After the class, Hermione's day was over, and she and Harry left the classroom together, just enjoying a dash of levity in their difficult lives.

They went to collect David from Professor McGonagall's office, where he was being watched over by the portraits of several benign and cooing Headmasters and Headmistresses. Harry had never seen them look so friendly.

"We're going to David's rescheduled dentist appointment now," Hermione told Harry rather shyly. "I planned on Apparating this time. Would you still like to come?"

"Yeah," he said, "I would."

Hermione nodded. She looked a bit nervous, but also relieved. He wondered for a moment whether she needed the support of someone who was on her side and had more than twenty words in his vocabulary.

They made it to the Grangers' practice without incident this time, and Harry felt a slight twinge of nerves as they went up the stairs. He shouldn't have felt nervous; he'd met Hermione's father before!

Mr. Granger greeted them outside his office. He kissed Hermione rather coolly on the cheek—Harry felt a surge of indignation—and beamed down at David happily. Then his eyes came to rest on Harry and they turned to ice. Harry knew he was in for it even before the explosion came.

"So," said Mr. Granger, "Harry Potter."

"Nice to see you again, Mr. Granger," said Harry weakly.

"You finally decided to come back and fix your mistakes, did you?"

Hermione looked up sharply. "Dad!" she snapped. "If you're going to be unpleasant to Harry, I can assure you, I'm going to turn around and leave and take David with me." She glared at her father.

Mr. Granger sighed wearily. "I'm just looking out for you, Hermione."

"I know, Dad, but I would appreciate it if you treated us a little better while you're at it."

Harry dumbly followed them into the office, startled by Mr. Granger's dislike, and remained silent throughout David's noisy and highly uncomfortable tooth examination. The boy seemed to take instant exception to it, and Harry, watching him, was suddenly reminded briefly of himself when Aunt Petunia had once—the one and only time—tried to foist a root canal upon him.

When the examination was done, David climbed straight onto Harry, literally launching himself off the chair. Mr. Granger looked, if it was possible, even colder.

"Does he have a sweet tooth?" he asked Hermione.

"Yes," she said, almost defiantly.

Mr. Granger nodded. "Go to my secretary outside, Hermione, and ask her for a box of sugar-free snacks for the boy. She'll have it packed for you in a few minutes."

Hermione looked as though she wanted to refuse, but possibly decided that she'd been rude enough to her estranged father for one day. She left the room, and Harry, left behind, wondered how he had coped with Bellatrix Lestrange, Snape, Umbridge and Voldemort, but found himself quaking before Mr. Granger.

"I just think you ought to know," said Mr. Granger in a hard voice, "That you ruined that girl's life. From the moment you set foot in it, everything she did had to revolve around you. You weren't happy, were you, unless your friends were always arranging and rearranging their lives to suit you? Well, she did it. She did everything for you, kept you alive for seven years—not because you needed her to, but because she cared—and in return, you turned around and left, leaving her behind in the condition she was in—"

Harry was so shocked that he could only gape. A sick squirm of guilt washed through him. Because wasn't a little bit of it true? Hadn't they stuck with him for years, only to be left behind?

"But…" he stammered, "I never meant to hurt her…"

"And what about your s—?"

"Weave Hawwy awone!" David suddenly shouted, clutching Harry tightly.

Harry wrapped his arm tighter around the baby. Mr. Granger looked so startled that he actually stopped speaking, and he looked at David with such sadness that Harry couldn't even be angry with him for everything he had said.

Mr. Granger finally just looked at Harry, and said, "Even that boy sees more than you do, Harry."

"Hermione loves you," Harry blurted before he could lose his nerve. "She loves you and her mother so much, and she misses you both, so don't—please don't punish her for something that isn't her fault. She'd be so much happier if you'd only just forgive her for whatever mistakes you think she made. She doesn't deserve this."

Mr. Granger stared at him in stupefied amazement, as though torn between being affronted and admiring that Harry had actually dared to say such a thing.

And standing just outside the door, Hermione heard every word, her heart beating very fast.

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**TBC.**

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	9. Dobby and His Ace

**Disclaimer: **I don't, of course, own any of this. JK Rowling/Warner Brothers do. I do own David and Belle, though.

**Summary: **Broken after the war, Harry left. Now, two years later, he's finally found the strength to return, only to discover that old sins have long shadows…

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**Old Sins**

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**Chapter Nine: **_**Dobby and His Ace**_

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"That house-elf," said Luna dreamily, pointing at Dobby, who was skulking around the living-room with mysterious movements, "Has an ace up his sleeve."

Harry and Hermione looked round in surprise; Ron glared at Luna. "What are you talking about?" Harry asked.

"Oh, haven't you noticed?" said Luna, apparently impervious to Ron's glower. "He's trying to get you and Hermione back together. He believes—and I must say, I agree—that we'll all be happier that way, especially you two and David. It could be OBHPF."

"What's that?" Harry blinked. "OBHPF?"

"One Big Happy Potter Family," said Luna serenely.

"Luna!" Hermione snapped, sounding much angrier than the occasion seemed to warrant.

"Oh, sorry," Luna went on, with wide-eyed innocence, regarding Harry and Hermione thoughtfully, "Have I embarrassed you?"

Hermione shuffled nervously. "Luna, it's not going to happen," she said in a constrained voice.

"Not going to happen," Harry repeated awkwardly.

"We're just _friends_," said Hermione.

"Just friends," Harry reiterated firmly.

"Are you a parrot, too?" Ron asked Harry with a grimace.

"And that goes for you too, Dobby!" Hermione called out, ignoring Ron completely.

Dobby gave them a mischievous look. "Yes, Hermione Granger."

Deciding that it would be better to leave the discussion before it got vastly out of hand, Harry stood up and with a feeble excuse, left the room. He went into the tapestry room, cast one dark look at the Black Family tapestry, and wandered over to David's crib, where the boy was playing with a toy broomstick.

"You'll make a good flier one day," he told David, hanging over the edge of the crib rather sadly. He ruffled the black hair in front of him and David turned smiling brown eyes to him. Harry smiled faintly. "You've certainly got the love for it. Your mother hates it, though. Where'd you get that from, then?"

"His father," said a voice behind him.

Harry jumped and turned to see that Hermione had followed him from the living-room. She was leaning against the doorframe and watching him and David with a rather odd and sad expression in her eyes, as if she was almost looking at what could have been…

"He should have been mine," Harry blurted, before he could stop himself.

Hermione's eyes flew wide. "It would've been a bit of a ball and chain for you, wouldn't it?" she finally stammered, a little unsteadily, with only a small drop of sarcasm.

"Maybe I want that," he said fiercely. "Maybe I want to be bound to something, irrevocably, maybe I need an anchor holding me to the world. You and Ron, you've been my anchor for so long, but what if it isn't enough? What if I want more than friends and companions and an Auror career? What if I want a family?"

"Wh-what exactly are you t-trying to say, Harry?"

He stared at her for a long moment, and then his shoulders slumped. "I don't know," he said quietly. "I don't know what I mean. I don't even know what I want anymore." He fought to recover, to change the subject, to wipe the shocked, almost hopeful look out of her eyes. "So – er – David's dad was a Quidditch player, was he? You know, for someone who never liked the sport much and never liked flying much, you certainly picked men who did…"

Hermione grinned sheepishly at that, the tension in her face slowly fading. "If you're referring to Viktor Krum and Cormac McClaggen and Ron – "

"And me," he said, leaning back against the crib, "Or don't you count me as part of your past?"

"You've always been a part of my past, Harry. You've never _not_ been there. I don't remember much of my life before I met you and Ron – and even when Ron and I were fighting, you were there. Sometimes, I wonder whether I define myself by you… or whether you define yourself by us… we've always been inextricable." She sighed. "Or at least, we were."

_Before you left…_ the words went unspoken, but he understood anyway, and he felt a pang of mingled guilt and anger. Would that mistake never leave him alone?

_Old sins have long shadows._

He ignored the voice in his head, and said nothing. After a moment, Hermione said, "I heard what you said to my father," she blurted. "About forgiving me and about how much I love them. The other day, at the dentist's. I just… no one's ever stuck up for me quite like that before. I wanted to thank you."

"You're welcome," said Harry, smiling slightly. "I – er – Hermione, you know I'll be here, always, don't you? I know I haven't in the past, I haven't treated you and Ron the way I really should have, but I'm really trying to make up for that."

Hermione's face softened. "Your life's been hard on you, Harry. We don't blame you for anything you've done because of it. And to be honest, we've sometimes asked more of you than you've been willing or ready to give." She looked at the floor. "I know _I_ have. But I know you're trying now, and that means more to us – to me – than anything else ever has. So, yes, I do know you'll always be here if I need you. And I _do_ need you, Harry."

"I don't think you do," he said softly. "It's _me_ who's always needed _you_."

"And I'm here," she said, smiling. "Always."

He nodded, and smiled back. It didn't really matter sometimes – friends, lovers, whatever they were or weren't – they still had each other and they would still stand, side by side, whenever the world demanded that they fight. That was the way it had always been. That was the way it would always be.

Or at least, it was, until Dobby entered the picture once more.

That afternoon, the house was particularly quiet. Harry was sitting in his bedroom and polishing his Firebolt with the Broomstick Servicing Kit Hermione had given him several years before. He was almost done when there was a knock on his door and Dobby slipped in, wringing bits of his child's jumper in his hands, two socks firmly placed over his ears.

"What's the matter, Dobby?" said Harry, half-alarmed that Dobby would throw himself at a wall again.

"Can Harry Potter help Dobby?" Dobby asked tentatively.

Harry put down his Firebolt. "Yeah, of course. What with? It's not cleaning, is it?" he asked suspiciously, reaching for his wand.

"No, no," said Dobby hastily. "Harry Potter can leave his wand behind. Dobby was just going to clean out the attic, but Dobby doesn't know what Harry Potter and his friends want to keep and what they want to throw out, so Dobby was hoping Harry Potter would help him sort boxes."

"Harry Potter'll do it just as long as Dobby stops calling him that," said Harry dryly, standing up. He left his wand behind and followed a chuckling Dobby out of the room and up the ladder on the next floor, and into the attic.

It occurred to him that perhaps the others would be better equipped to sort out the stuff in the attic—after all, they had lived here longer, technically—but then Harry remembered that they weren't home. Ron and Luna were out for the rest of the day and probably wouldn't be home until late at night, David was with Mrs. Weasley (not that he could do much), and Harry had no idea where Hermione was.

Dobby pointed at a pile of dusty boxes. "Dobby doesn't know which ones Harry Potter and his friends might want to keep."

Harry went to the pile of boxes and looked through them. One held old photo albums. He gave it to Dobby to place in the 'keep' pile; he knew Hermione would want to keep all their old photographs. The next box held moldy and broken Christmas decorations. He set them aside for disposal – Christmas had been just a month or so ago; they had plenty of time to get new decorations for the next one. The third box was also promptly dispensed with; it held old Black memorabilia, the sort Sirius would have hated with a passion (mostly photographs of his charming mother).

Within twenty minutes, Harry had quite neatly sorted out the various boxes in the attic, while Dobby set about cleaning the attic and de-dusting the items in the boxes they had decided to keep. Harry couldn't help noticing that Dobby kept shooting him surreptitious sideways glances, as if waiting for something.

There was just one box left. Harry opened it, and was surprised to see a small pile of unopened letters – about four or five in all – and each was neatly addressed to "Harry Potter".

"I've never read these letters," he muttered to himself, pulling out the little pile. His heart quickened a little; the handwriting on the envelopes was very obviously Hermione's. He frowned. Had she written him letters but just never gotten around to sending them? Had she left them here, hoping no one would ever find them?

He looked quickly at Dobby. Had he been brought here _deliberately_?

Very slowly, he opened the first and oldest letter.

_Dear Harry,_

_It's been two months since you left, and I've finally worked up the nerve to write this letter to you. I don't know if you'll ever read it—you've got Hedwig and I don't know if any other owl will be able to find you. No one knows where you are, after all._

_I'm sure you think we're all terribly furious with you for leaving, but we're not, Harry. Really. We just miss you dreadfully. I mean, I don't know if I can forgive you—I need to say this—but I'm not angry. Ron was, for a few weeks. He called you all kinds of names, but you know what Ron's like. Within the first three weeks, his anger spent itself and he just got awfully gloomy._

_I'm sure you're wondering why I waited so long to write this letter. The truth is: I never intended to write to you at all. I intended to give you time to heal and come back, to leave you alone. I also thought that after the first few weeks, I would stop missing you so much and the pain would go away. Well, it hasn't. It hasn't gone away, Harry. I've heard about "out of sight, out of mind", but it doesn't work. With each day, it only gets worse._

_Why did you go, Harry? Did we mean so little to you?_

_Love,_

_Hermione_

His eyes scalded with tears, Harry read through each of the letters. Each one was quiet, without rage or rambling sorrow or grief, yet he felt Hermione's loneliness with each word. Finally, his hands shaking a little, he picked up the last letter and read it.

_Dear Harry,_

_Maybe I'll actually find the nerve to send this letter, unlike all the others I've written. This one is a little different. I'm not going to ask you to come home. I'm not going to burden you by telling you I miss you dreadfully, or ask you what made you think you could just __leave__ us like that…_

_I'm just going to say goodbye._

_David turned a year old today, by the way. Ron gave him a toy broomstick; he adores it. So I suppose this makes it just under a year and nine months since that last night we really spent together, you and I. I'm not going to ask you to come home, because you deserve to be happy, and if you're happy wherever you are, that's all I can ask for. _

_I have David and I think I'm going to be very happy, too. He is, after all, a part of you – at least I get to keep that – and he's the best part of me. _

_I love you, Harry. I always will._

_So, goodbye._

_Love,_

_Hermione_

Behind the tears, behind the sadness, Harry's head was in a whirl. What was she talking about? A year and nine months?

"What does she mean, he's part of me?" he asked out loud, voice shaking slightly.

Dobby looked at him, eyes very wide and innocent. "But humans always refer to sons as being part of their fathers, Harry Potter," he said. "Dobby thinks it makes perfect sense."

"I don't have a son," Harry stammered. "I—I don't—"

Dobby patted his knee, grinning toothily. "Does David not exist, then?"

Harry sprang up so fast that he sent Dobby flying. "Where is Hermione?" he said through gritted teeth, his heart pounding so hard he was absolutely certain it would burst right out of his chest.

"Dobby will take Harry Potter to her," said Dobby promptly, still beaming as though he was utterly delighted with himself.

Mutinously silent, thoroughly shaken, Harry followed Dobby down from the attic, down three floors in the old house, and to the tapestry room. There was a large, walk-in cupboard in the corner; Hermione was kneeling inside it, removing the last of old clothes, evidently sorting through various things as well.

Harry marched right into the cupboard as well, and Hermione stood up, looking surprised. "Where have you been?" she demanded accusingly. "Ron told me you were going to meet me an hour ago, to sort through these things – "

Harry didn't even bother to consider the implications of this statement.

"How could you not tell me—?" he began furiously, but never got to finish his sentence.

At that very moment, the cupboard doors slammed, leaving Harry and Hermione trapped inside in relative darkness. Hermione instinctively grabbed Harry's arm, and Harry, discovering that they were both wandless and that the door was locked, banged on it, hard. It didn't so much as budge.

They were stuck.

Slowly, realization dawned on them both. In the dim cupboard light, Harry saw a mirrored expression on Hermione's face.

"DOBBY!" they both yelled.

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**TBC.**

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	10. The Cupboard

**Disclaimer: **Not mine.

**Summary: **Broken after the war, Harry left. Now, two years later, he's finally found the strength to return, only to discover that old sins have long shadows…

**A/N: **_This is going to be a short one, and I'm awfully sorry about that, but I'm so unbelievably busy that you wouldn't believe it. The next chapter will be much longer, and I hope I'll be able to finish and post it soon. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy this, where everything comes out into the open, in a manner of speaking, in the seclusion of a cupboard!_

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**Old Sins**

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**Chapter Ten: **_**The Cupboard**_

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After several shouts, threats and finally pleas, all of which proved futile, Harry and Hermione stopped yelling at Dobby. Harry's voice was hoarse and raw, his heart pounding hard. Yelling at Dobby had been a distraction—that house-elf, he thought savagely, had turned almost _human_ in his freedom!—but now, he and Hermione found themselves in a singularly awkward and difficult situation. Harry, already so furious, had no trouble venting his spleen on Hermione, now.

"How could you not tell me?" he growled. "What, you didn't think I had a right to know that I've got a bloody _son_?"

Hermione gasped. "You… you know. How?"

"Who cares?" he roared. "Does it matter? I want to know why you didn't tell me!"

"What good would it have done?" she snapped.

"Good? Hermione, for heaven's sake! David has a right to have a father, you know. Oh, I daresay Ron and the others have tried filling that rule—they're all perfect, aren't they?—but he needs _me_. That kid loves me, and God help me, I love him, and you had no right to keep that from both of us. Oh," he sucked in a sharp breath. "David always knew, didn't he? That's why he… he knew…"

"He saw what you didn't," said Hermione, and as Harry's eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, he saw her dash a hand across her eyes. "Stop feeling like you were dealt a bad deal here, Harry."

"Does that mean you're glad you didn't tell me?"

"No," she said angrily. "I'm not. I wished every moment for the courage to tell you what you _did_ have a right to know—and I'm _sorry_ I didn't say anything, Harry. But I will not apologize for keeping my mouth shut after the first few weeks. You spent so much time with us, with David, that it's your fault you didn't know sooner. How could you not see it? Everyone else saw it at once! Even _Snape_ knew he was your son the instant he looked at him! Even Narcissa—"

Harry slumped back against the cupboard and sank to the floor, his head spinning. His anger had left him instantly and felt a creeping sense of guilt.

Flashes passed before his eyes: Professor McGonagall telling him David was powerful—of course he was; his parents were two of the most powerful people in the wizarding world!—the odd look on Snape's face when Harry brought the subject of Hermione and David up—the way the Weasleys and Luna and Neville had looked at him that very first time he'd seen David—Mr. Granger's sudden dislike of him—the odd, sad look on Hermione's face sometimes, when she looked at him playing with her son—the way David had never called him "Uncle Hawwy"…

"How could I have seen it?" he groaned softly. "Hermione, I was thick, I know that, but I never had a _reason_ to question it. When I asked you, you told me his father was dead, that I didn't know him… I didn't have any reason to think you were _lying_ to me." His voice hardened.

"I know," she said softly. "But I was so angry and so relieved every time you missed the hints. I _wanted_ you to work it out, a part of me did, but another part was dreading this moment…"

"Why didn't you tell me?" Harry asked quietly. "Before, why didn't you send those letters to me and let me know?"

Suddenly, she was angry. "What for?" And in the dim light, her eyes flashed. "I know you well enough, Harry, and if I'd told you about David, you would have come home. You would have been unhappy. I wanted you to come back on your own, I wanted you to do what _you_ wanted to with your life. I didn't want you to come to me because of David, I didn't want you back _that_ way.

"And – " she added in a whisper, "I – I think I hated you a little bit, too. I think I thought, in some part of my mind, that since you left me anyway, you didn't deserve to know about anything else."

There was a long silence after this brief, broken speech. Harry leaned his head tiredly against the cupboard wall and breathed in ragged, musty breaths. He had never felt so alone, or so lost. He felt as though he had managed to save the Muggle and wizarding worlds, but had also single-handedly shot to dust every good thing in his life. He closed his eyes. Yes, he'd had a difficult life, he'd been dealt a bad set of cards. Maybe he couldn't have made things better.

But there was always that 'what if'… what if he'd stayed behind? What if he'd overcome his fears in time, and stayed with Hermione, loved her then as fiercely as he did now?

What if there was no fear, no Voldemort, no Narcissa?

What if, what if, what if…

Very slowly, Harry reached across and touched Hermione's hand. He slowly entwined his fingers with her as they sat there silently, side by side in the cupboard, side by side as they'd always been, since he'd first met her.

"I am sorry, Harry," she said softly.

He found that he didn't need to hear that. It hurt, it made him angry, that she hadn't told him—that no one, none of his friends, had told him—but he could live with that. Five years ago, he might have walked away and refused to speak to them for a few weeks. Today, he understood. He understood how much Hermione must have hurt, he remembered that he, too, had kept things from her that she'd had a right to know, and he realized that he was capable of forgiving her _anything_. And as for his friends, he could forgive them too, because they'd watched over her and his son while he hadn't.

"I really ripped your life apart, didn't I?" said Harry with a bitter smile.

She sighed. "You have no idea what it did to me when you left, Harry. You were supposed to love me more than that. I could understand your leaving the others, I could understand why you went in the first place… but I couldn't understand how you'd left _me_. That was the cruelest cut of all, and David had nothing to do with it then. Finding out about it was just the icing on the cake in the end. But it was my heart you tore to bits, Harry, not my life. You were supposed to love me more than that, and it was difficult to admit I could have been wrong to hope."

His eyes closed and tears slid out from under them, shakily tracking their way down a face that sometimes didn't belong to a twenty-year-old boy.

"I s'pose asking to be forgiven would be too much," he said weakly.

"Oh, Harry, I've already forgiven you. I forgave you the moment I saw you again, because I looked into your green eyes and saw everything you had suffered for twenty long years. I looked into your eyes and I saw a sad little boy who watched his Cousin Dudley being loved and cuddled by his mother, while you were alone… I cried, sometimes, for you and how lonely you must have been all your life. Even when you had us, Voldemort haunted you, and you were alone…"

"I learnt to live with it," said Harry.

"I know, but you shouldn't have had to. That's why I tried to stay with you, always, so that sometimes, it didn't have to hurt either of us as much. I don't know whether I made any difference to your life—"

"You did," he said quietly. "You made all the difference."

Hermione took a deep breath. "I'm glad," she said simply, sincerely. "But that was what I saw in your eyes when you returned that night, Harry, and I suddenly found that I wasn't angry with you, or upset, or even hurt anymore. A little, yes, but not like I'd thought I would be. I found that – that if you l-love someone enough, you c-can forgive them anything."

Harry started slightly, because he'd had a similar thought just moment before.

He tightened his hold on Hermione's hand. The wounds, and the unhealed scars, hadn't gone away. No one would ever fully understand the depth of the damage his isolation and war had done to him.

Those wounds put a barrier between Hermione and him. A wall of tears. Maybe they could never really be together, the two of them. They were best friends, and always would be, but there was too much danger. But it didn't matter, not right now. For her, and for David—and for himself, too—he was going to be a good father, now. He was going to fix those mistakes. He just hoped that would be enough for her.

He just hoped that would be enough for himself.

"If it's all right," he said tentatively, "I – I'd like to meet my son."

Hermione squeezed my hand. "I'd like that," she said shyly. "I have a feeling it won't surprise him much, but I think David would like calling you 'Daddy' much more than he does 'Hawwy'."

"You know, he can say 'r' sounds," Harry said conversationally.

"Oh, yes," said Hermione bitterly, "I think he's just trying to be rebellious. I wonder who he reminds me of."

Harry grinned, and the ache in his chest eased again.

As if on cue, the cupboard door clicked and swung open. Harry blinked in the dazzling light of day, and crawled to his feet, holding out a hand to help Hermione up. The two of them stepped out of the cupboard, to find Dobby standing a few feet away, holding their wands out as if he expected to be cursed into oblivion.

Harry took his wand calmly. "Thanks, Dobby."

"Dobby, do you think you could put these things back into the cupboard?" Hermione asked equally calmly, sounding as though she hadn't spent the past half an hour trapped in said cupboard.

Dobby began to grin tentatively, apparently secure in that his beloved masters—as he would always think of them, in spite of Hermione's constant corrections—still loved him. "With pleasure, Hermione Granger," he said happily.

Harry and Hermione left him wearing a grin so broad, Harry was amazed he hadn't cracked his face in half.

"So do we thank Ron, or kill him?" he asked, when they were out of Dobby's earshot.

Hermione let out a reluctant giggle. "Kill him first, then thank him, I think," she said. "He really is so fond of us. Do you think he'll ever manage to move out? I have a feeling he and Luna are going to live here all their lives—unless you and I both move out, in which case they'll follow one or both of us."

"Well, I plan to stay here," said Harry, amazed that he could have grown so attached to a house he had once hated. "Sirius would have liked the way we've changed it, and when I'm here and I listen at night, I sometimes think I can hear his footsteps padding down the hallway."

"I know what you mean."

"What about you, though?" He avoided her eye. "Do you think you'll stay here as well?"

"Yes, I think so. I can't deny the advantages of not paying rent."

He smiled. "There is that."

At that moment, the doorbell rang. Dobby zipped past them on his way to open it, and a few seconds later, he reappeared, with Mrs. Weasley and David in tow. "Oh, Harry, Hermione, how nice to see you, dears," she said, obviously very busy, as she was laden with shopping bags, which floated behind her eerily. "I just came to drop David off, and also to remind you both about dinner at the Burrow tomorrow. Ron did tell you, didn't you?"

"No," said Hermione dryly, "But now we know."

Mrs. Weasley handed David to Hermione. "He's missed you both dreadfully today," she said indulgently, as David squeaked excitingly into his mother's ear.

"Well, his father missed him," said Hermione meaningfully.

It took Mrs. Weasley a few seconds to process that. Then she shrieked. "He knows? HE KNOWS!"

"He knows," said Harry gravely.

"Oh, Harry dear—this is wonderful—Arthur! Ron! Bill! Oh, why is no one ever _here_ when I want them?"

"Because it's my house," Harry suggested.

Molly beamed at him. "David, look, it's your father!"

"Yes," agreed David with childish dignity, obviously unable to perceive the reason for these transports of delight. He paid Mrs. Weasley no further attention; instead, he crawled from Hermione's arms to Harry's, and began to pull at the seams of Harry's shirt.

Hermione tried half-heartedly to stop him, but Harry told her not to worry, he didn't mind having his son ruin his shirts.

"Wow," he breathed after, "I'm never going to get tired of saying 'my son'."

"Oh!" gasped Mrs. Weasley tearfully. "And now, are you two—?"

"No," Harry and Hermione both said very quickly.

Mrs. Weasley's face fell, and she looked absolutely crestfallen. "So, no happy ending just yet?" she said, evidently only half-joking, her handkerchief whipping itself out of her bag and mopping her eyes on its own.

"No," said Harry quietly, "Not while Narcissa's still out there."

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**TBC.**

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	11. Worst Fear

**Disclaimer: **Not mine.

**Summary: **Broken after the war, Harry left. Now, two years later, he's finally found the strength to return, only to discover that old sins have long shadows…

**A/N: **_Again, sorry for how long it took me to get this up. I almost wish I was still in school – at least there's the prospect of holidays, then! This chapter is considerably longer than the previous one, and I rather like it, so…_

_This story, as a whole, was __slightly__ inspired by My Chemical Romance's "Ghost of You" (incredible song). I had intended to weave the song into the story at the very beginning, to bring out Hermione's point of view about Harry leaving and possibly never returning. But when I started writing, it didn't seem right, because the story was largely told from Harry's perspective. _

_This chapter, and the next one, finally seem like the right place for this song. This chapter, so far, has been the hardest one to right. The next one may be even harder for me… hehe. But I hope you guys enjoy it._

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**Old Sins**

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**Chapter Eleven: **_**Worst Fear**_

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_I never said I'd lie and wait forever_

_If I could, we'd be together, oh…_

_I could always just forget her,_

_But she could try._

_At the end of the world, or the last thing I see_

_You are never coming home, never coming home,_

_Could I? Should I?_

_And all the things that you never ever told me_

_And all the smiles that are ever, ever…_

…

Everyone agreed that Harry Potter was madly in love.

With his _son_, he insisted. It had always been clear that Harry, reluctantly, unwillingly, hesitantly, had fallen prey to David. But it seemed that it was only now that he showed it in its entire depth and power, it was only now that he felt like he was _allowed_ to love the boy that much. David was _his_ son.

The idea of fatherhood had always terrified him. Those bonds, that much responsibility, had always seemed like too great a burden. But the reality of it shook him. It wasn't frightening at all. In fact, it felt rather… perfect. Not fatherhood, specifically. That, as well as the sense of home he suddenly became aware of. His family had always been the Weasleys, Ron, Luna, Hermione, Hagrid and so many others. But—and this was a subtle, but crucial difference—they had never really been his _family_.

Now, with David, he felt like he'd found the family he'd lost and searched for all his life. And though every instinct told him not to think about it, he knew, somewhere in an unspoken corner of his mind, that Hermione was part of that family. She was the bit that tied it all together.

Without her, though he didn't realize this at the time, David wouldn't mean as much. He would always love him, of course, but nothing would be complete.

"Harry, my dear boy," George said, the moment he and Fred found out that Harry knew, "May we offer our hearty congratulations on your recent repossession of your brain? _How_ did it take you so long to realize that that ridiculously mischievous boy was yours?"

"So, you worked it out at last, did you?" was all Professor McGonagall would say, though her eyes twinkled behind their stern spectacles.

Hermione seemed thoroughly amused, and exasperated, by his behavior. "Harry, he isn't _going_ anywhere," she protested, when Harry refused to hand David over to her for the fourth time in a row, "I promise I'm not going to kidnap him. Now do you think I could feed him? Don't you have to be at Kingsley's office in fifteen minutes?"

"Yeah, I do," said Harry, reluctantly letting David go. David seemed beyond amused by his father's attachment to him.

"You sure you trust Mum to watch him?" said Ron wickedly. "I mean, she might drop him or something."

Harry shot Hermione an anxious look, and she sighed and swatted Ron over the head. "You're just making things worse, Ron," she said, as David launched himself happily into her arms and tried reaching for a bottle of Butterbeer over her shoulder. "And by the way, it turns out I don't have any plans for the day, so I can meet you and Luna for lunch at The Three Broomsticks after all, like you wanted. Harry, are you coming, too?"

"Yes," said Harry at once, "I'll meet you after I see Kingsley."

Ron looked astonished. "I thought you said you didn't want to come before, when I told you Hermione wasn't going to be there—oh, I see." Enlightenment dawned on his face, and his ears turned red as Harry glowered at him. "Right. Well," he went on hastily, evidently desperate to change the subject, "I thought you cancelled our plans because you were meeting Ginny, Hermione?"

"I was, but Ginny confessed that things are going rather well between her and Neville," said Hermione distractedly, "So I told her I'd meet you lot instead and let her spend the day alone with him."

Harry sat back in his chair and watched in amusement as Ron choked on his breakfast. "Excuse me?" he spluttered, when he was able to speak again. "Ginny and _Neville_? You don't seriously expect me to believe that my—my sister and Neville are now… oh, ick… together?"

"Well, they are," said Hermione calmly. "And you will keep your opinion out of it in their presence, Ron Weasley."

"I hope she treats him all right," Harry ventured, frowning slightly as he remembered his own relationship with Ginny. "Neville's always adored her, hasn't he, and if Ginny's just looking to have some fun—because, you know, that's all she ever used to want when we were at school. With that Michael Corner or whatever his name was, and Dean, and… er… me."

"I think she's sincerely fallen in love with Neville," said Hermione.

"Oh. That's all right, then."

Hermione looked at Harry quickly, while spooning cornflakes into David's mouth. "You don't mind, do you, Harry?"

"Mind?" he was genuinely surprised. "Why would I care?"

"Well, you really loved her, didn't you?"

Ron snorted loudly. "No, he didn't. Even _I_ know that. Harry and Ginny had what Lavender and I had, only they were also friends and actually cared about and admired each other. But not in _that_ way. I mean, I don't like thinking about my sister doing those sorts of things, but it was just physical, wasn't it, Harry?"

"Yeah," said Harry, shrugging, "It was. I thought it was more at the time, but the feelings just faded in the face of… more powerful things."

He darted a look at Hermione as he said this, involuntarily, and thankfully, she was so focused on David that she didn't notice this. Ron, most uncharacteristically and inconveniently, _did_ notice it, and began to grin in a rather alarmingly obvious manner. Harry kicked him under the table.

"Well, I'm going to take David to Mrs. Weasley," said Hermione quite cheerfully, standing up and waving her wand at David's cornflakes bowl; it flew into the sink and began to wash itself up. "Then I'll be going straight to Hogwarts. I think I've put two students in detention, and they're sure to have shirked it. I'll see you two and Luna at the Three Broomsticks, then?"

"One o' clock," Ron called after her, his mouth full.

Hermione waved over her shoulder to show that she'd heard him, and left. They heard her call "oh, hi, Tonks!" from the hall, and a moment later, Tonks herself tripped into the room. Harry and Ron leapt up, and, with Quidditch-players' reflexes, caught her before she fell flat on her face.

"Oh, thanks, you two!" she said brightly. "I came for a spot of breakfast. I see I've missed Hermione, but do you have a few minutes?"

"I always have a few minutes for more breakfast," Ron told her, and Harry, aware that he could be at Kingsley's office in two minutes flat, sat down as well.

"Where's Lupin?" Harry asked Tonks.

Tonks grinned. "Remus has been roped into substituting during Hagrid's Care of Magical Creatures lessons today. He's not very happy about it. I heard something about Blast-Ended Skrewts."

"Where's Hagrid gone?"

"On a date with Madam Maxime, apparently."

They all laughed at Hagrid's long-standing romance with Madam Maxime, which was apparently going nowhere. As Harry passed Tonks the box of cornflakes, some milk, and bacon, he remembered that he had something to say to his best friend. He scowled at Ron, who was still grinning at him.

"D'you mind not _beaming_ at me when she's in the room, by the way?" he said irately.

"Sorry."

"Who, Hermione?" said Tonks keenly.

Harry sighed. "Yes."

"I won't do it again," Ron promised, chuckling.

"You're still looking disgustingly happy. I don't know what you're so pleased about, Ron, it was _Dobby_ who managed to get the secret out into the open in the end." (At that moment, Dobby drifted through the room, dusting, wearing a mountain of brand-new socks, a present from Harry). "And anyway, Ron, you know why Hermione and I aren't together. She deserves someone who can really love her, and someone who won't get her _killed_."

"And just how do you think that's going to work, Harry?" asked Tonks, studying him thoughtfully for a moment. "I mean, I understand how you feel. I really do. Remus used to feel the same way about me. That is, apart from the part where you don't really love Hermione, or _say_ you don't." Before Harry could object to this last bit, Tonks went on, eyes twinkling. "Look, Harry, let's pretend for a moment that Hermione's not in love with you and that she's in love with some other random person. Let's call him Viktor, because, you know, it's convenient."

This thought made Harry distinctly unhappy, but he nodded fiercely. "All right."

"And let's assume she brings dear, sweet, charming Viktor home with her… to, you know, meet her family."

"And to… you know… do other stuff," Ron put in wickedly.

"Shut up, Ron."

"Well, anyway," said Tonks hastily, cutting in, "What if you and Ron and Luna and David are all here when she comes home with Viktor? Of course, she's got to introduce you all—maybe that's the point of Viktor's visit. After all, Hermione can't have a serious relationship with anyone unless they become part of our extended family, which means they'd have to meet us all."

Harry frowned. "What's your point?"

"Well, how is it going to sound?" said Tonks reasonably. "'Oh, Viktor, this is Ron and this is Luna, they're two of my best friends. And I don't think you've met David, my young son? And this is Harry… you know, Harry Potter… he's more famous and a better wizard than you'll ever be. And he… er, well, you see, Viktor, he also happens to be the father of my son. And I _live _with him!'."

Ron let out a guffaw of laughter. "Listen, mate, I don't know about you," he said, between helpless giggles, "But if any girl said that to _me_, I'd be out of there so fast. Look at it this way. First off, she's got a kid. Secondly, the kid's got a father who happens to be her best friend, meaning they still spend loads and loads of time together. Who knows what might happen? And third, as if all that's not enough, she bloody lives in the same house as the kid's father, in the very next room, in fact. You two aren't even separated by a _floor_."

Harry clenched and unclenched his jaw. "If _Viktor_—or whoever he is—can't accept all that, then he just doesn't love Hermione enough, does he?"

"That's a good point," said Tonks, "But David will never allow anyone else to try and be a father figure to him. He thinks you're the only one good enough for his mother, whom he adores, by the way."

Harry smiled at this, but ploughed on. "David will cope. He'll always have me, even if Hermione and I aren't… besides, if she and Viktor-Whatever get _married_," he got the words out with immense difficulty, "Hermione won't be living with me anymore."

Tonks and Ron looked at him for a long moment, and there was so much sympathy in their eyes that he looked away, gritting his teeth. He did not want to think about this.

"Stop smiling, Ron," he said, catching sight of the knowing grin on Ron's face in a reflection in one of the teaspoons.

Ron grinned harder. "It's just that I _love_ being the grown-up one for a change. _I'm_ in a stable, loving, happy relationship—the last person anyone expected to have the emotional maturity for it, too!—while _you_ two, the more mature ones, are still dancing circles around each other like children. It's just way too funny, that's all, mate. It's—what's the word?—_ironic_."

"Yeah, point taken," said Harry with a reluctant smile. He changed the subject, latching onto what was, at present, his most favorite subject. "So what d'you two think of David? I know you've known him for a long time, but he really has Hermione's eyes, doesn't he?"

"And your taste for trouble," said Tonks brightly.

Ron agreed. "He's your son, all right, mate."

Harry grinned. "Yeah, he is," he said happily, and got up to go and change for his meeting with Kingsley. As he left the room, he heard Ron and Tonks laughing after him. He felt so cheerful that for just one moment, he began to wonder whether they were all finally free of the shadows of war, and whether all the pieces were beginning to fall together at last.

Both Tonks and Ron were gone by the time he left the house to Dobby's care, and Apparated to the Ministry, where he made his way to Kingsley's office. However, discovering that Kingsley was preoccupied, he returned home quite cheerfully. He was in too good a mood to concentrate on work.

To his surprise, he heard the sound of a shower when he walked back into Number Twelve. Who had come back? Surely Dobby wasn't having a bath?

He made his way towards his room, and was halfway down the hallway when the door at the very end, the bathroom door, opened and a wave of steam billowed out. A moment later, Hermione stepped out, clad only in a towel. Her hair was wet and curling around her shoulders, and her eyes sparkled against flushed cheeks. Her skin—and there was a lot of it—glowed with a faint moisture from the shower.

Harry gulped. She looked incredible.

"Harry!" she yelped and turned even pinker, but apart from tugging her towel tighter around her, made no attempt to bolt away from him and into her room. "What in the world are you doing back here?"

It took him a moment to speak; he had to force his eyes to remain on hers, and he had to clear his throat a couple of times. Even then, it sounded a bit hoarse when he heard it. "I could ask you the same thing," he said. "Kingsley had a bit of an emergency with some sort of minor Dark wizard in Ireland, so he rescheduled our meeting for tomorrow."

"Oh," said Hermione, lifting a hand to try and straighten her tousled hair. "Well, Professor McGonagall decided she wanted to teach the first- and second-years today, so she gave me a day's holiday. I was going to lie in bed and read a book until it was time for lunch, but since you're home, if you'd like to do anything else…?"

_Yes_, thought Harry at once. _Yes, there's so much I'd like to do –_

He cut his mind off immediately, before it could go any further. He was not supposed to think of those things. He was, in fact, supposed to avoid thinking about Hermione altogether. Which was something that was far easier said than done, of course, but she wasn't to know that.

"Well," he managed, "Why don't you get dressed and I'll think of something we can do?"

Hermione smiled. "I'll meet you in your room in a few minutes."

Harry nodded and bolted into his bedroom. He flopped down onto his bed, taking off his tie and the top button of his shirt, and tried to breathe slowly and calmly. He closed his eyes and a series of distinctly _not_ platonic images shot through his head. He opened his eyes again at once.

Narcissa, he thought. He had to think about what he was going to do about Narcissa. He couldn't let her wander around forever, plotting to kill his… family.

Hermione walked in a moment later, and shut the door quietly behind her. She was dressed in jeans and a sweater, but the clothes didn't help much. He knew all too well what she looked like under them. He rubbed the back of his neck and moved a little so that Hermione would have some room.

She sat down cross-legged beside him on the bed, and turned to face him. "So what did you what to do?" she asked.

"I didn't manage to think of anything," he said sheepishly. He didn't admit that it was because he had been thinking of her without her towel on. "Do you have any ideas?"

Hermione looked thoughtful for a moment or two, and then brightened. "All right, this is a Muggle game," she said. "I think it's called 'Never'. My mother used to tell me about how she and her friends would play it when they were younger." She held up her hands. "The object of the game is to make your opponent fold in all his fingers before you."

Harry held his hands up as well. "And how do you do that?"

"Well, for instance, I could say something like 'I've never slept in the same room as Dean Thomas'. And because I've actually never done it, I can keep all my fingers up, but you'd have to fold one of yours, because you _have_. Then you could say something that you know or hope I've done that you never have, and you get to keep all your remaining fingers up while I drop one."

"All right," said Harry, amused. "Let's see what you've got up your sleeve."

Hermione grinned. "You can go first."

"I've never worn a dress," said Harry with a wicked grin, "And dress robes don't count."

Hermione laughed. "Ooh, that's a good one." She folded down her left index finger, and then cocked her head as though she was thinking. "I've never kissed Ginny anywhere except on the cheek."

"Low," Harry complained, and dropped one of his fingers. "I've never kissed Viktor Krum."

"Lower," Hermione pointed out. "I've never been to the zoo."

Harry gaped at her as he lowered one of his fingers. "_Never_? Even _I've_ been, and my aunt and uncle weren't known for their tendency to take me places."

"My parents hated zoos," said Hermione.

"I've never worn braces," said Harry, grinning.

Hermione giggled and dropped a finger; the joke might have struck a nerve in the earlier part of her fourth year at Hogwarts, but not anymore, because her teeth were just the right size now. "I…" she scrunched up her nose, thinking hard, and then brightened slightly. "I… er… I've never done _it_ with anyone except you."

Harry kept all his fingers up, eyebrows raised. Hermione's mouth fell open. "I'm the only one you've ever…?" she gasped.

"Yeah."

"But – but what about the two years you were away?"

Harry smiled. "No one."

"Oh." Hermione blushed. "Your – your turn."

"I've never liked kissing anyone," said Harry, in a very low voice, "The way I loved kissing you."

Hermione stared at him, wide-eyed. He leaned forward, his fingers entwining themselves with hers. "You lose," he whispered against her mouth, and then kissed her. It took her only half a second to kiss him back.

Harry pinned her down to the bed as he kissed down her throat, nuzzling into her neck, and then along her shoulder, tugging the sweater down. Hermione mumbled something incoherent, and then pulled him up so she could kiss him again. He tangled his fingers in her hair, and sucked in a sharp breath as she slid her hands under his shirt, the soft skin of her fingers and her nails smoothing over his skin.

"Hermione," he breathed.

This could have gone on for hours. All Harry knew was that when the interruption came, it came far, far too soon.

The mirror in his room cleared its throat gingerly.

"Do excuse me, dears," she said very apologetically, "But I thought you might want to know that it's almost one o' clock, and if you don't hurry along, you're going to be very late to your lunch date at The Three Broomsticks."

Harry groaned and rolled off Hermione. "Do you want to forget about lunch?" he asked slowly.

She bit her lip. "Yes," she said, "But we _did _promise them, Harry."

"You're right," he nodded. "Damn Ron."

Regretfully, they straightened their clothes and put on whatever had been taken off somewhere along the way, like Hermione's sweater and Harry's shirt. Harry tried not to look at her—he had a feeling his self-control wouldn't cope with it if he did—and he tried not to feel guilty. This was not supposed to happen. He wasn't supposed to want her, need her like this. They weren't supposed to get involved, because they both deserved something less painful, and if Narcissa saw…

"Are you all right, Harry?" Hermione asked him gently.

He nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, I am."

They were both smiling when they left Number Twelve, hands touching like furtive children in the glow of forever. Hermione kept her distance, understanding how he felt, and Harry didn't reach out of her, afraid of what might happen if he did. He was just extraordinarily happy that she was there, and that he had his son.

Ron noticed their smiles the moment he saw them. "You two look like you're in good moods," he said, kicking out two chairs at the Three Broomsticks, so they could sit down.

Harry dropped into his chair next to Hermione. "Oh, we—er—"

"We were just playing a Muggle game," said Hermione calmly, her eyes darting to Harry's for a mere instant. "It was… enjoyable."

"Enjoyable?" said Harry wickedly. "That's all it was?"

"Well, maybe it was a bit more than that."

"What sort of game was this, exactly?" asked Ron suspiciously.

"Ooh, a Flakwort!" squealed Luna excitedly, pointing at absolutely nothing in the middle of the room. Ron was suitably distracted, and began to hunt for this mysterious creature. Luna giggled as Harry and Hermione shot her intensely grateful looks, her protuberant blue eyes knowing and delighted.

When all had calmed down, Ron ordered lunch for them all. Hermione wasn't very hungry, so she declined a main course.

"You can share mine," Harry offered. "I'm not terribly hungry, either."

Ron and Luna grinned at each other, but said nothing. "So, listen, this thing with Ginny and Neville," said Ron after a moment, looking troubled. "What do I _do_? How do I act around Neville now? I mean, he's with my sister!"

"You treat him exactly the way you treated Harry when he was dating Ginny," said Hermione acidly, "_Normally_."

"It's easy for you to say," Ron grumbled. "D'you think they'll get married before any of us?"

Luna observed him serenely. "Are we getting married, then?"

"Some day, I'spose," said Ron unromantically, through a mouthful of sandwich, "Not anytime soon, though. I mean, look at Harry and Hermione. They have a son, and it's all right for them, because David got Harry's hair and Hermione's brain—"

"Hey!" said both Harry and Hermione indignantly.

"But any kid of ours will just have _weird_ genes, Luna," Ron finished wisely.

"Unfortunately, that is true," said Luna, sighing.

Harry had a sudden vivid mental image of a small red-haired girl with large, demented blue eyes, a spray of freckles and a decidedly spacey mind. He bit his tongue to keep from laughing and caught Hermione's eye, hoping her poker face would help keep his in order. Unfortunately, she took one look at him and began to giggle, and the next moment, they were all laughing.

They were still laughing, the four of them, when they left The Three Broomsticks an hour later. Luna needed to collect some potions ingredients from a store at the far end of Hogsmeade, near the desolate hill where Harry, Ron and Hermione had once met Sirius. They were still laughing as they strolled away from the crowds and noise of Hogsmeade, towards the shadow of the hill.

They were still laughing when the jet of light hit Hermione in the chest.

It happened so quickly, so suddenly, that Ron was still smiling uncertainly, torn between amusement and shock and confusion, when Hermione silently and almost gracefully crumpled to the ground. Harry's smile froze in place as his eyes locked on those of the person standing at the foot of the hill.

She was clammy and weak, as though the spell had taken nearly everything out of her. She was shaking limply, as though she would collapse at any moment. But her eyes were _alive, _alive with madness and with malice.

With triumph.

Narcissa turned and fled, and as she disappeared, Harry thought he could hear a cold, fluttering laugh drift towards him on the wind.

That was when Luna began to scream, and Ron began to choke sobbingly as he fell to his knees.

"Hermione!" Their voices mingled and echoed desolately, panicked and horrified and broken to bits in the sudden shock and onslaught of grief, in the cold of the afternoon. "Hermione, no! Harry! Hermione!"

Harry didn't even think to run after Narcissa. He had never been able to think properly when Hermione was in trouble.

He had no memory, later on, of running—no, stumbling, _crawling_—to her side. He only remembered the moment he touched her, and cradled her in his arms, and felt her skin cold as ice under his fingers. She was still. Too still. And he knew what cold and still meant…

"No," he heard his own voice as though it was coming from far away. "No, it can't—it can't happen like this—Hermione, wake up, please wake up." He held her tightly, lips buried in her hair, his voice a pitiful, pathetic appeal to nothing, because she was no longer there. Her brown eyes wide and hollow and empty, she wasn't there any longer. The cold, lifeless thing in his arms wasn't the Hermione he knew.

_It wasn't her._

"NO!" howled Harry, the sound torn from his throat. "HERMIONE!"

Everyone agreed that Harry Potter was madly in love.

But it wasn't necessarily with his son.

…

_Ever get the feeling that you'll never—_

_All alone and I remember now_

_At the top of my lungs, in my arms,_

_She dies,_

_She dies…_

…

…

…

**TBC.**

…


	12. Ghost of You

**Disclaimer: **Not mine.

**Summary: **Broken after the war, Harry left. Now, two years later, he's finally found the strength to return, only to discover that old sins have long shadows…

**A/N: **_Judging by the onslaught of reviews, people really liked the last chapter—and many of you are really upset about what happened to Hermione! Trust me when I say that I know where this story is going and I've put quite a bit of thought into it… :-)_

_Anyway, enjoy this one. It's not very long, but it's sort of the other half of the previous chapter, and I've tried to get it out as quickly as possible._

…

…

**Old Sins**

…

…

**Chapter Twelve: **_**Ghost of You**_

…

…

…

_Ever get the feeling that you'll never—_

_All alone and I remember now_

_At the top of my lungs in my arms,_

_She dies,_

_She dies…_

…

_At the end of the world, or the last thing I see_

_You are never coming home, never coming home,_

_Could I? Should I?_

_And all the things that you never ever told me_

_And all the smiles that are ever going to haunt me,_

_Never coming home, never coming home,_

_Could I? Should I?_

_For all the wounds that are ever going to scar me,_

_For all the ghosts that are never going to catch me…_

…

"Remus," Tonks gasped in relief, when she opened the front door of Number Twelve to him. "Oh, Remus, thank heavens you're here!" Her valiantly pale, tightly held together expression shattered and she burst into tears, throwing herself into his arms and sobbing desperately. "I can't believe it… _Hermione_… It could have been anyone, why'd it have to be her? I never thought I'd ever have to say good—goodbye to _her_… and oh, Remus, you should have seen the _look_ on Harry's face when they brought her back here…"

Lupin held her tightly, drawing in shaky breaths as he tried to keep his own tears from coming. He had been in the Forbidden Forest, with his last substitution class for the day, when Hagrid had come thundering in. Lupin had only seen Hagrid that distraught once before: when Dumbledore had been killed.

In broken, disjointed sentences, Hagrid had sobbed out something about Narcissa Malfoy, and Harry and Hermione. Lupin hadn't understood a word of it—it had taken all his powers to calm Hagrid down—and it had finally taken the fiercely controlled, slightly quivering voice and explanation of Professor McGonagall before the truth had really hit him.

Hermione was dead.

It took a few minutes before Tonks calmed down completely, and then she wiped her face on his shirt—he didn't even notice—and looked up at him with an expression that told him he could make everything all right. But he couldn't, he thought desperately. How could he fix _this_? How could anyone put right this unspeakably terrible, terrible thing?

"She was my favorite, you know," he said distantly. "Not even Harry, who was James's son… _she_ was so much like what I used to be, she…"

"What do we do?" Tonks whispered. "Harry's _face_, Remus, if you'd seen it—"

He didn't need her to describe it. He knew exactly what it might have looked like, because he knew exactly how Harry had felt about the young woman who now lay stone-cold and empty somewhere in this house.

"Who else is here?" croaked Lupin now, discarding his coat and following his young wife into the silent, bleak house.

Tonks gestured into the living room. "Almost everyone," she said in a low voice, as they hesitated out in the corridor. "Professor McGonagall and Hagrid were here, but they left a little while ago. Molly left sobbing as well—I don't think she could face it just yet—and Arthur and Bill went with Kingsley to see what they could do about tracking Narcissa down. I—I feel so sick, Remus, just knowing I'm related to her!" Her eyes filled with tears again.

Even in his youth, there was one thing Remus Lupin had always been known for: his ability to keep a clear, calm head. His ability to think when everyone else had lost their heads, his ability to think instead of allowing his feelings to overpower him. It was his greatest form of self-defense and he used it now, so he wouldn't have to feel…

It occurred to him that not even when he and Sirius had lived in this house alone, and Sirius had been at his most miserable, had the house seemed so bleak, so hostile, so dark and empty of hope and joy.

He scanned the living-room silently. Ginny and Neville were sitting together in a large armchair. Neville had his face buried in his hands and Ginny was very still, her face pale and so shocked that Lupin assumed she couldn't quite register or accept that one of her best friends was… dead. _He_ knew how _that_ felt, he thought bitterly, didn't he?

There were a couple of other ex-Hogwarts students; Parvati Patil and Dean Thomas and a couple of others he knew by face but not by name. Then there were the twins, Fred and George, their faces so blank and wiped clean off any humor that Lupin almost didn't recognize them. Mad-Eye Moody, pacing the edge of the room, his stump of a leg making a soft thudding sound every time he moved. He alone looked expressionless, grim.

And Luna, curled up in the corner of a sofa closest to where Tonks and Lupin stood. She'd been crying a great deal, that was obvious, and her eyes were not vacant or dreamy as they usually were. No sweeter alternate reality for Luna this time.

"Do her parents know?" asked Lupin quietly.

Tonks sniffed. "No—no one wants to tell them, Remus. How _can_ we? They'll have to know, of course, but we can't tell them just yet… everyone's so afraid they'll try to take her away. They can, you know, she's not married and so they're the ones who would have authority over it. Magical deaths don't need preservation, so we can keep her here for some time… but if they take her away…" her voice broke.

Lupin understood. Even if Hermione was already gone, having her parents take what was left of her away, before her wizarding family could do what they could for her, would be a terrible blow to them all. It would make the loss complete.

Nonetheless, he felt they ought to know. They _were_ her parents.

"Where's Ron?" Lupin suddenly realized that the boy was nowhere in sight.

It was Luna who answered, looking up from the floor. "He's shut himself up in our room," she said very softly, her voice a whisper on the air. "He won't talk to anyone, not even to me. He might talk to Harry, but Harry won't speak to anybody either… I don't think they'll get through this."

Lupin winced at Luna's blunt statement of the truth, but couldn't disagree with her. What would Harry and Ron be, without Hermione?

_Harry…_

His heart wrenching, Lupin said gently, "Luna, where _is_ Harry?"

"I don't know," she replied, standing up. "He _was_ with her until about five minutes ago. I went up to check. But he wasn't there anymore. He might be in his room, but I don't know." She moved towards the stairs. "I think I'm going to Hermione's room. I think I'll keep her company. You might stare," she added defiantly to Moody, who had in fact turned to stare at her upon hearing her words. "But Hermione can still feel us, even if she's dead."

Lupin waited quietly until Luna was gone, and then followed her up the stairs. He was going to find Harry.

…

…

…

Harry wandered through the hallways, past the door to the attic and Buckbeak's old room, back and forth, back and forth. The tears had dried on his face, and he had been convinced he would never cry again. It was as if every feeling had been cut off, and killed, as surely as Hermione had been. He couldn't feel anything, and it was a conscious effort to keep breathing.

He hadn't wanted to come back home. Why _should_ he, he'd argued? There was no home without her. There was nothing to come back to. She was never coming home, so why should he?

But he'd come back anyway, and yet… he wasn't home. Not really. He was somewhere else, wherever she was.

He felt… yes, he felt _dead_.

"I loved you," he muttered into the darkness of the hall, staring at an imagined shadow flickering over the wall. "I never told you, but I've been in love with you for years and I just never knew it…"

The shadow smiled, and laughed, and waved. The ghost he couldn't reach.

He sat down slowly on the floor, and slumped against the wall of the hallway, resting his head back against the cool stone of it. His eyes were red and raw and dry, and her face flickered across them, over and over, interspersed with her laughing shadow over the floor.

"Stay," he whispered, "Haunt me if you have to. Just—just don't leave me alone. I can't do this without you. Stay."

Distantly, he thought about the long years of his life, longer than most wizards who lived for hundreds of years. He thought about his mother Lily, his father James, and Sirius and Dumbledore and Cedric and all those other people who had died during the war, before and after, too, and all the other wounds that had scored themselves across his very being.

All those ghosts, he thought, who would never, ever catch up to him. He watched Hermione's face in his mind, saw it smile, and felt a sudden burst of pain.

"Daddy?"

Harry froze as realization struck him, hard. He turned his head and saw David walking slowly down the hallway. "Daddy," David whispered, sobs choking in his throat. "I went to Mum's room… I tried to wake her up, but she won't wake up… I don't know what to do."

It was the first time he'd ever called her 'Mum'. It was that valiant attempt to be grown-up that nearly undid Harry. He held out his arms and David curled into them, sobbing into Harry's shirt. And Harry realized that he could feel everything again, all the pain and loneliness and desperation… and love. And he cried, softly and silently, so his son wouldn't see the tears. Because fathers had to stay strong, didn't they, like his had done?

"I've got you," he mumbled brokenly. "I've still got you, David. And—and it may not be much, but you've still got me."

Lupin found them there a few minutes later, but he said nothing. He only nodded slightly at Harry, to show that he would be downstairs if Harry needed him. Harry nodded back, slowly, aware that if there was one thing Hermione would have wanted, it would have been for him to keep himself together and to take care of their son and keep their _family_ together.

"Watch over them for me, Harry," her ghost whispered in his ear.

"I will," he whispered back.

When David had cried himself to sleep, Harry took him to his own room and tucked David up in his bed. He would have to sleep here now. Harry carefully smoothed his son's hair back from his forehead, and called Dobby softly. The house-elf appeared, weeping buckets all over the floor.

"Dobby, please keep an eye on him, would you?" said Harry quietly. "I'll be back in a few minutes."

"Of course, Harry Potter," sobbed Dobby.

Harry patted the house-elf gently on the ears, trying to offer some sort of comfort, and then left the room. He walked across the hall, and knocked quietly on the room door opposite his, his eyes moving slowly to Hermione's room. He could see Luna and Ginny sitting silently beside her bed, through the open door, and he was glad. He swallowed hard. He didn't want her to be alone.

"Ron," Harry called, when no one answered his knock. "Ron, open the door or I'm going to break my way in."

The door swung open and a very red-eyed, old-looking Ron looked angrily out at him. "Exactly who do you think you bloody are?" he muttered, allowing Harry to walk into the room. "Oh, I know I didn't love her the way you did, but she was one of my bloody best friends and I don't know what I'm going to do! Just leave me alone, Harry."

"No," said Harry quietly. "I won't. Because you're not alone. Don't shut Luna out, Ron, she wants to help you so badly. And don't shut me out. We're all we've got left now, you and I, we're all that's left of the family we had nine years ago."

Ron took a deep, shaky breath. "What do you want from me, Harry?"

"Just to tell you I intend to find Narcissa before the month is out," said Harry, and no one could have mistaken the rage quietly pulsing through his voice. "You've been more than a best friend to me, Ron, you've been a brother. So I'm asking you now, as a brother… will you help me find her?"

…

…

…

Three days passed. Mr. and Mrs. Granger were told, and when they tried to come to take Hermione away, Harry and Ron were distraught. Lupin, though he sympathized with the Grangers' grief, unexpectedly stepped in.

"You haven't treated Hermione very well the past few years," he said. "You're still her parents and you have every right to see your daughter, but I must ask you for some time. There are many of us who still need to say goodbye. We were her family when you weren't. The wizarding world was the one she loved and belonged to. Let that world honor her."

When Harry wasn't with his inconsolable son, trying to bring some light back into David's life, he worked feverishly by day. He and Ron and countless others were desperately, furiously trying to hunt down the woman who had taken away someone they had all loved so much. But at night, when it went quiet, Harry would put David to sleep and would prowl the quiet old house as Sirius had used to. Ron would fall asleep, exhausted from the day. But Harry couldn't sleep.

He would go instead to her room, and sit beside her bed and talk to her, telling her about the day and all kinds of ordinary things, holding her still cold hand and trying to infuse some life back into it.

He stayed with her in those quiet, dark hours, when not even his son could take the darkness away. He fought off the darkness for her, because he believed she could still feel it, and she held the darkness away from him. When he was close to her, he could believe that at any moment, she would open her eyes and she would smile sleepily at him.

"I love you, Harry," the ghost told him, laughing in his ear.

He smiled. "I love you too."

Then he would cry, when no one could see him, and it was just the two of them.

But when three nights disappeared this way, Harry found that his body had other plans for him. He slipped into an uneasy, exhausted sleep late that night, and he drifted in and out of consciousness. Many things flickered through his drowsy mind, faces and high cold laughter and warm smiles to chase the demons away. He saw the jet of light hit Hermione in the chest, but for some reason, he simply couldn't remember what color it was, and that suddenly seemed terribly important.

And then he saw Hermione again, lying still in her bed next door, and this time, he saw something he had noticed before but never fully registered.

There were faint, purplish bruises under her ears.

That meant _something_, the alert part of his brain told him restlessly. The Avada Kedavra wasn't supposed to leave a mark on the victim, but perhaps another killing curse did… yet even then, his mind argued, he knew something, in the corner of his mind, to defy that explanation. Those bruises meant something important…

If _only_ he could remember…

…

_At the end of the world, or the last thing I see_

_You are never coming home, never coming home,_

_Could I? Should I?_

_And all the things that you never ever told me_

_And all the smiles that are ever going to haunt me,_

_Never coming home, never coming home,_

_Could I? Should I?_

_For all the wounds that are ever going to scar me,_

_For all the ghosts that are never going to catch me…_

…

_I cry for you…_

…

…

…

**TBC.**

…


	13. Power He Knew Not

**Disclaimer: **Not mine.

**Summary: **Broken after the war, Harry left. Now, two years later, he's finally found the strength to return, only to discover that old sins have long shadows…

**A/N: **_A word of warning: this chapter, and the next one, will be quite short. I had intended for them to be a single chapter, but decided it worked better if I split them. Chapter Fifteen will probably be the last one!_

_A couple of questions cropped up in reviews for the last chapter, and I think they'll be answered here. I also tried to put in a bit of Ron's feelings and perspective here._

_Evergreen Scepter: I'm beginning to feel truly afraid that you can read my mind!_

_Enjoy this, everyone!_

…

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**Old Sins**

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**Chapter Thirteen: **_**Power He Knew Not**_

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…

…

Lupin walked into the kitchen of Number Twelve to find Ron sitting alone at the table, his head buried in his hands, waiting for him. Lupin realized, with a surge of pity, that Ron looked about eight times older and sadder.

"Ron?" he said gently. "You wanted to talk to me?"

Ron looked up, and nodded. "Could you put a Silencing Charm on the room?" he asked. "My magic is a little off-kilter. I think it has something to do with emotional turmoil, or whatever it's called. Hermione could have explained it better." He winced and Lupin realized saying her name was hard for him. He knew the feeling; it was nearly impossible for Lupin to say "Hermione" without suffering a violent surge of pain.

He cast the Charm, and sat down opposite Ron at the table. "What's the matter? I know I haven't been here the past two days—we've been trying to find Narcissa—but I think I may have an idea about what this is about. Harry?"

"Yeah," said Ron, rubbing his eyes. "I'm really worried about him. To be honest, he's giving me the bloody creeps."

"Well, it's only natural that Harry would take this harder than anybody else—"

"Yeah, but this isn't normal behavior!"

Lupin frowned. "What are you talking about, Ron? What 'behavior' are you referring to, exactly? I'm going to need you to be very specific about this."

Ron took a deep breath. "You haven't been here… it started yesterday morning. I woke up, and he had gone completely mad. I mean, before that, he wasn't exactly… well… stable. He wandered around, talking to her. He seemed to think he could see her—her ghost, he called it—and when he was with her—it—he almost seemed like his own self. But that's not normal, is it? She _doesn't_ have a ghost! He's imagining it, desperately hoping that maybe she'll come back…" Ron's voice shook. "I hope she'll come back, too. I hear her voice in my head, telling me things. _For goodness sake, Ron, don't leave the dishes like _that! And I—I miss her so much, like I don't know what to do without her… but I don't see her. I don't believe she's still here, like he does!"

"Ron, I think we can understand that," said Lupin gently, "When I—you see, when James and Lily died, and when Sirius died, I—I used to believe, sometimes, that I could still see them. Ghosts, if you will. Harry is not delusional. He is simply suffering terribly and looking for any way to ease his pain. By all counts, he's doing very well, trying to stay strong for David."

Jaw working, Ron bobbed his head. "Okay," he said weakly, rubbing his eyes again—they had filled with tears—"Okay, I can accept that. But none of that explains what started yesterday morning. It's one thing to imagine a ghost, but another to—I don't even know _what_ he's doing!"

"Go on," said Lupin. "What changed?"

"He's not slouching around, lifeless and hollow, anymore. He's not staying strong for David—I mean, he is, but he keeps telling David things like 'I'm going to bring Mum back, David, I promise you'! It's like he's completely lost it. He's gone into this frantic state of energy… he's been running around the house, muttering under his breath about weird things like Tibet and purple bruises… and he keeps bounding into the Black library, to read—to _read_!—these old, heavy books…"

Ron covered his face with his hands. "Hermione's gone," he choked out. "And now I feel like Harry's gone, too, and I can't _do_ this without them…"

Lupin reached out and shook Ron's shoulder bracingly. Before he could say anything, however, the kitchen door burst open, and a young man cannoned in: the subject of their conversation. Lupin saw at once the frantic energy Ron had described. But he saw something else as well: Harry's eyes were shining… with _life_.

"Professor Lupin!" Harry skidded to a halt, and stared with distracted fervency at Lupin, "I'm glad you're here! You're the only other wizard I know with decent knowledge of the Muggle world. Did you know that Tibetan monks are masters of deep meditation?"

Lupin blinked. Behind Harry, Ron gave Lupin a look that said 'I told you so'.

"I—I beg your pardon, Harry?" said Lupin faintly. "I've vaguely heard about Tibetan monks, but I'm not sure…"

"Yeah, I'd only heard briefly about them too, while I was living with my aunt and uncle and watching the Muggle news and stuff. But I've done some reading in the Black library, and I've found out more about them. D'you know where they got their meditation techniques from? From Tibetan _wizards_."

"Y-Yes," said Lupin, "But why…?"

"Of course," said Harry, "The wizarding technique is much more powerful and intense. It's an old spell that the wizards can cast on themselves or on each other. Of course, only another wizard can release the meditating wizard from the spell… the spell itself puts them into a deep sleep. It slows their pulses, quiets their mind… for all purposes, it gives the appearance of death…"

Lupin's eyes were beginning to widen slowly. "Harry, how do you know all this?"

"Saw it," said Harry promptly, "When I was in Tibet. Went there briefly while I was flying all over the world, and there were some awfully nice wizards there who showed me how it's done. I remember watching them. Whenever they were put into the meditation sleep, they would look and feel dead. But you could tell they weren't, because they would have these purplish bruises just below their ears." Harry began to grin. "And d'you know what Hermione has under her ears?"

"No," said Ron, mouth falling open. "No way."

Harry grinned at him. "Purplish bruises, just like the ones I saw in Tibet." His face hardened, and he suddenly looked bleak and angry. "Can you imagine what might have happened if I didn't know about this? We would have had a funeral, and we would have buried her—buried her alive! Narcissa would have let us leave her in an eternal sleep!" His voice shook with his anger.

Lupin was trying to stay calm. He did not want to hope… and yet, he could feel a surge of warmth and happiness again… could it be?

"But, Harry, why would Narcissa use such a spell instead of killing her outright?"

"Power," said Harry on a cold thread of rage, "She's weaker than we thought. I could see it when she cast the spell. It almost killed her. The Avada Kedavra would undoubtedly have killed her. She can't use it just yet, but I have no doubt she intends to finish her work as soon as she can… assuming we didn't do it for her first, by burying Hermione…"

"B-But – " spluttered Ron, "How would _Narcissa Malfoy_ know about an old and probably quite well-hidden Tibetan spell?"

Harry gestured to the Black family tapestry in the next room. "I did some research into the Malfoy family. Apparently, Lucius had an uncle who was very fond of him, and who visited often. A Dark wizard of sorts, who had settled in Tibet."

"You've really done your homework, haven't you?" said Lupin, impressed. He couldn't help but smile, though a little tiredly, at the boy—no, he realized, not a boy anymore—at the _man_ before him. "Hermione would be so proud."

"And you thought I'd gone completely mental, running around all over the place," said Harry shrewdly, to Ron.

Ron's ears turned red. "Well, what was I _supposed_ to think?" he muttered.

"I've also been trying to remember the way to release the spell. They showed me, in Tibet, but I don't think I can remember it properly. I've been looking that up as well. I have an idea of how I could do it, but I wanted to see if the Black library could tell me more before I did anything. It can go terribly wrong and I'll die before I make a mess of this." Harry sat down abruptly, all the energy and strength fading out of him.

"When I find her," he said in a low, deadly voice, "When I find her for doing this… she has to be stopped before she comes back to really hurt Hermione, and to kill David… she has to be stopped."

Lupin was silent for a long time. "We won't let that happen, Harry. But we've had no success finding Narcissa. How do you intend to do so?"

Harry gritted his teeth. "I'll find a way. LUNA!" he shouted suddenly, making Ron and Luna jump. "LUNA, IF YOU DROP HIM, YOU WILL BE DEAD BEFORE HE HITS THE WATER!" He sighed and stood up. "Luna offered to give David a bath while I looked through a few books in the library. Unfortunately, I don't think she understands that babies can drown if dropped into a bathtub full of hot water—NO, LUNA, DON'T DO THAT, HE'S NOT A PENDULUM!"

He hurtled out of the room, leaving Ron to gape wordlessly at Lupin. Lupin stared after Harry for a long moment, and a twinge of unease crept into his mind, mingling with the hope and joy that had only just flooded there. He forced his mind away from Hermione, content in that she was safe and alive and could be healed, and tried to fathom what had just happened.

"How did he bloody do that?" Ron whispered. "How did he know what Luna was doing in the bathroom, two floors above us, with David?"

Lupin felt a vague, elusive tendril of memory drift into his head. "I can't be certain, of course," he said cautiously, rubbing his forehead and suddenly feeling extraordinarily old, "But I think Harry's magic is bursting to the fore. He's suffered terribly over the past week, and endured huge levels of emotion. Wizard emotion is closely linked to our magic. I think the strain is beginning to manifest itself in a burst of his magic, loosely spinning out of his control. That makes him very powerful—but he could also hurt himself."

"But how did he do _that_?"

"Wandless magic, Ron," said Lupin, "Harry learned many skills while he was away. He even taught you and Neville a few of his wandless spells, remember? What he just did, I think, was that he was able to latch onto David's consciousness, and sense what was happening to him. He could probably do it to anyone, and I don't think he meant for it to happen this time, but with his magic bubbling, it just… did. It's an old and very difficult art, to snag the threads of another person's consciousness. It works better if you know the person well, and David _is_ Harry's son."

"Couldn't he find Narcissa the same way?" Ron breathed, awed.

"No, I don't think so. The distance is a huge obstacle, and he isn't at all familiar with her mind." Lupin frowned slightly. "I'm more concerned about what might happen if Harry lets the magic control him. He is, after all, an immensely powerful wizard. But we have no reason to worry about that just yet. There's Hermione to think of."

Ron blinked slowly, as though only finally digesting what Harry had said. "She's alive…" he said. "She's really alive…"

"There's hope yet," said Lupin, smiling.

And the following day, they put that hope to the test. Ron and Lupin stood in the corner of Hermione's room while Harry bent over her. There were several others outside the room, waiting anxiously. Harry looked white and strained, obviously well aware of how badly it could all go wrong. Lupin watched, tense and alert, as Harry reached out and held Hermione's face between his hands.

And saw the most staggering display of wandless magic he had ever witnessed in his life.

Harry's eyes closed, his forehead creasing in concentration. Light poured out of his hands and into Hermione's skin, as though with that light alone he could infuse life back into her. Lupin had done his own reading of the Tibetan technique since yesterday; he knew this was what was supposed to happen. He watched, jaw slightly lax, as the magic filled the room. Little silver threads appeared around Hermione—the previously invisible strings of the spell binding her to the illusion of death. Harry's magic, a vivid Gryffindor crimson, flowed between the threads, tugging at them. And then there was another outpouring of magic… periwinkle blue… dancing with the Gryffindor red, filling the entire room with light.

Ron raised a hand to shield his eyes, his face pale and frozen in disbelief and wonder. Lupin didn't blame him. It was titanic, he realized. Cataclysmic. The magic of two of the most powerful young people in the wizarding world was mingling and swirling through the air, pouring one life force into another, breaking through the cage of death's illusion…

He watched as the silver threads of the spell snapped and dissolved…

…As the red and blue danced around each other, intertwining, as if swearing that they would never let anything separate them again…

And then the light was gone.

Harry's eyes flew open in shock, and he slumped back, his hands shaking. He was pale and clammy, his eyes reflecting the amazement and exhaustion of what he had just done. Slowly, he looked into Hermione's face. Lupin held his breath, waiting—

She took a slow, deep, shaky breath. And lay still, sleeping.

"Why isn't she waking up?" Ron said in distress.

"She won't wake properly for some time," said Lupin slowly, his voice croaking as he reached out tentatively to touch Hermione's hand. Warm. "She has been trapped by the spell for an awfully long time. I read that the length of time is takes for someone to recover is proportional to how long they remain under it. But—" he said it, said it out loud, "She'll be fine…"

Harry's fingers slowly entwined with Hermione's, as their magic had done. "She'll be fine," he repeated, his mouth formulating the words with infinite care.

Ron sagged onto the floor abruptly, and wiped a hand over his pale face, looking almost as shaken as Harry did. "If I'm not dead by the time I'm thirty years old," he said with feeling, "It'll be a bloody miracle."

…

…

…

In the end, it was Professor McGonagall who finally pried Harry away from Hermione's side, and sent him downstairs. "Potter, she needs to rest," she said sternly, "And you need nutrition. Miss Lovegood will remain here with Hermione. She is quite capable, as you are well aware. You will now go downstairs and have some lunch. Mrs. Weasley has cooked a feast for an army, though with all her sons there, I daresay you will need to hurry to have your share. Now do go away, and don't fuss."

Harry left without complaint, which made Ron, though normally not very quick on the uptake, instantly suspicious. He followed Harry down to the drawing room, where Harry reached for his coat.

"You're going to find her now, aren't you?" Ron said grimly. "Harry… Harry, I'm coming with you."

Harry shook his head. "No, Ron. I'd take you, only I need someone here—one of us—in case Hermione wakes up. And I need you to watch over David. If anything happens to me, Ron… well, look, I've already decided I'm going to leave a third of my money to you. The rest goes to Hermione and David, with a quarter going to Lupin."

Ron's mouth fell open, and he laughed uncertainly. "Mate, you don't really think _Narcissa_ could defeat you? You fought You-Know-Who!"

"My magic's weak, Ron," said Harry quietly. "What I just did up there, for Hermione. I'll never regret it—how could I, when I'm nothing without her?—but it took almost everything out of me. Lupin was right, you know. I was losing control of my magic, and what I just did sort of righted the balance, but took a lot of the magic away… it may be days before I regain it all again…"

"Then don't go! You could wait until you've got your power back! Harry, please!"

"I can't wait," said Harry. "She'll know that Hermione's awake. She'll know at once—the bloody underground she's been getting her information from, they pick up things so fast… if I stay, she'll come back and she might succeed this time. I won't risk that. Besides," he smiled a little sadly. "I never needed all my magic, you know. That was never what made me powerful. Dumbledore always told me, but I never really understood until now. The Power He Knew Not. It was love for Hermione, though I never knew it, that helped me defeat him. And it's love that will help me fight Narcissa now."

"Then you think you'll win, that you'll defeat her, too."

"Oh, I know I will." Harry's smile was dangerous. "She is, after all, only a Malfoy."

"She's a Black. You know what Sirius could do."

Harry smiled again. "I'll win."

Ron stared at him, and Harry saw comprehension and horror dawn in his eyes. "So you know you'll win," Ron said slowly, his voice shaking, "But—but you don't think you'll survive it. You—you'll go, and you'll take her with you."

"I don't know."

"Harry – "

"I know," said Harry, smiling faintly. "You're my best mate, my brother. I've never needed you to say it. And, Ron?" He swallowed visibly. "Just—tell her I loved her. Please."

Ron's hands were shaking. _Not Harry, no, not Harry, please I can't do this. First Hermione, and now Harry. How will I ever tell her he's gone? How will I ever tell David? How will I cope if he isn't there? There is no Ron Weasley… it's Harry, Ron and Hermione. It has to be. Not Harry, please, no, Harry, don't do this… _

"H-How will you find her?" he burst out. "You don't know where she is! You can't bloody do this, Harry! You don't know where she might be!"

However, Harry didn't have to respond to this. For at that moment, the front door of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, opened, and a man walked in, his black eyes shadowed by a curtain of black hair. "Good evening, Potter, Weasley," he said, his voice cool and silky and faintly sneering. "It would seem that I have come at precisely the right time. I believe I can tell you exactly where Narcissa Malfoy is."

Harry and Ron both turned around to stare at Severus Snape.

Ron looked like he had swallowed a pint of Stinksap. "You'll do anything to help Harry get himself killed, won't you?" he said bitterly.

…

…

…

**TBC.**

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	14. It Ends Tonight

**Disclaimer: **Not mine.

**Summary: **Broken after the war, Harry left. Now, two years later, he's finally found the strength to return, only to discover that old sins have long shadows…

**A/N: **_Sorry for the delay – I've been out of town for two weeks. This one is going to be very short and, again, sorry for that, but if I'd added the climax in here, it would have taken me another week to update the story!_

_Anyway, the next chapter will have the climax, and the one after that will be the epilogue and the end of the story. So enjoy this one!_

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**Old Sins**

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**Chapter Fourteen: **_**It Ends Tonight**_

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The front door of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, opened, and a man walked in, his black eyes shadowed by a curtain of black hair. "Good evening, Potter, Weasley," he said, his voice cool and silky and faintly sneering. "It would seem that I have come at precisely the right time. I believe I can tell you exactly where Narcissa Malfoy is."

Harry and Ron both turned around to stare at Severus Snape.

Ron looked like he had swallowed a pint of Stinksap. "You'll do anything to help Harry get himself killed, won't you?" he said bitterly.

Apparently, Snape did not feel this was worth dignifying with the response. Instead, he directly addressed Harry. "I know where Narcissa is."

"And you'll tell me, will you?" said Harry with dislike. "You wouldn't be trying to lead me into a trap?" Catching sight of the cold look on Snape's face, he decided that Snape didn't intend to send him into the trap. But there was something there, in that sallow face, that startled Harry. It was a very faint trace of humanity. Harry went on, curtly: "Why are you doing this?"

"Miss Granger's death changes things," said Snape coolly. "Narcissa must be stopped."

"So you'll just betray your old friend?" said Harry.

Snape eyed him coldly. "I am not sentimental."

"Ho!" said Ron angrily. "So you think Narcissa _killed_ Hermione! She didn't! She did much worse!" And spluttering, his words tumbling one after another, Ron managed to tell Snape exactly what Narcissa Malfoy had done. Harry, listening to it, fell a new rush of rage. He was exhausted and drained and empty, but there was still enough in him to be furious all over again.

"She left her like that!" Harry shouted. "She left her neither alive nor dead – waiting to be buried alive! _Where is she_?"

Snape's expression had changed. "If Miss Granger is alive," he said, "Then there is no need for my presence here."

Harry moved so fast he was a blur; his wand was out and pointed directly at Snape. "I am not going to give her a chance to come back for Hermione," he said in a low, deadly voice. "I am not going to let her come after her, or after my son. If I have to squeeze every last bit of information out of you, I will. But you are going to tell me where she is. This ends tonight. _Where – is – she_?"

"You are tired, Potter. Do you really hope to be able to defeat her?" Snape sneered slightly. "Or me, for that matter?"

"Why don't we find out, then?"

Snape studied Harry for a long time. His loathing of him hadn't changed, Harry realized. But it was tinged with a very faint respect. Harry had, after all, killed Voldemort. And he had proven himself beyond anything Snape had expected. Harry saw the decision being made, slowly and reluctantly. Then Snape said, his cold calm unimpaired by the weight of his choice:

"You will find her at this address." Snape held out a scrap of parchment. Harry and Ron peered at it.

"How can you do it?" Ron blurted, before Snape could leave. "You were her _friend._ How can you give her up, knowing… what might happen?"

Snape swept from the dark, gloomy house without another word, and lightning crashed against the sky as the door shut behind him. But Harry understood. He knew how Snape could do it. It was for the same reason that Snape had been able to obey Dumbledore's request and kill him, for the same reason that he had been able to pretend to be on Voldemort's side.

"I don't like him," said Harry to Ron, ruefully. "I'll probably always hate him. But he does the right thing. When it comes down to it, and things are really difficult and dark, Snape does the right thing, whatever the cost to him… or to his friends."

Ron looked at Harry in awe, and Harry was slightly surprised at himself. He really _was_ growing up, he realized.

"I don't know if that's a good thing or not," said Ron, "To sacrifice your friends for what's right… I dunno if I could do it, mate."

"Neither do I," said Harry, and then straightened up slightly. He smiled. "But then, my friends are the kind I would be a bloody idiot to sacrifice, wouldn't I?" He looked at the door, through which Snape had just disappeared, and took a deep breath. He knew he might never come back to this place, which had become home to him. He knew that like Sirius, like his parents, like Dumbledore, he might walk out of his home tonight, to do the right thing, and never return again.

But that was all right, Harry told himself. Because as long as he knew Hermione and David were safe, it wouldn't matter. Because, he, Harry, could _also_ do the right thing, whatever the cost.

"Goodbye, Ron," he said.

Ron swallowed visibly. "I'll tell her. And… I… I'll see you later, yeah?"

"We'll meet again," Harry promised, but didn't specify which world it might be in. And then he turned, the address of Narcissa's new hiding place branded like fire in stone in his head, and he walked out of his home.

Ron heard the door close, and then he sank slowly down onto the nearest couch and covered his face with his hands. Then he cried. Too much had happened in the past few days. It was too much for anyone to cope with, and he wasn't strong like Harry and Hermione. Luna was everything to him, it was true. But he needed them—both of them—to be all right. To be whole. Hermione would never be the same if anything happened to Harry tonight. He'd lose them both. He'd already been so afraid he had, when he'd thought Hermione was… and now…

It had to be Harry, Ron and Hermione.

It _had_ to.

"Ron?" He felt a warm, soft arm around his shoulders, and he looked up into Luna's soft, dreamy eyes. She was his escape, the one thing in the world that truly understood him and filled him and… he ruefully acknowledged this… could put up with every part of him. It was Harry, Ron and Hermione, but it was also Harry-and-Hermione. Luna was the other half of the Ron equation.

"I don't know what to do," he whispered.

"He's gone, hasn't he?" said Luna softly. "I thought he might. David's asleep. I just checked on him. How will we tell him?"

"How will we tell _Hermione_?" said Ron hollowly.

Luna took his hand and helped him up. "Let's not worry about it just yet. Lupin's with her—he told me to come and check on you. I'll make you some toast with Fridwill blueberries. They're enchanted, you know."

"If you say so," said Ron, cracking a very slight smile at that.

But they were halfway through the toast, Ron's stomach jumping at every moment—Harry must be almost at Narcissa's, by now—when Ginny came tearing into the room. Ron's nerves were so badly shot that her violent entrance made him drop his glass of milk. It shattered, and Luna scowled at Ginny.

"Hermione's awake," Ginny choked out.

Luna forgave her. The three of them raced back up the stairs, where Neville and Lupin were just exiting Hermione's room. "Neville, why don't you get David?" said Lupin, smiling as he saw Ron, Luna and Ginny. "He's asleep, but I'm sure he won't mind being woken so he can see his mother again."

"Can we go in?" asked Ron anxiously.

"Yes, of course. I'll be there in a moment. I've got to tell Molly and Tonks."

Ron edged carefully into Hermione's room, and his heart leapt when he saw her lying on her bed, sitting up and smiling at him. He, Luna and Ginny went forward, each wearing ear-splitting grins. "You gave us quite a fright there," said Ron, trying to seem as indifferent as possible.

Hermione wasn't fooled; that was obvious. "Ron," she said happily, "Ginny, Luna. I'm so glad you're all here!"

"How do you feel?" asked Ginny, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "Okay?"

"A little tired, but I'm all right. And—"

"Mum!" David shrieked from the doorway. He tore into the room, stumbling over his own feet—he was, after all, only barely two years old—and he threw himself at the bed. Ron obligingly lifted him up onto the covers, and David buried his face in Hermione's neck, sobbing. "Mum, I was so scared!"

"Oh, sweetheart, I'm so sorry," she said, holding him tightly. "I never wanted to frighten you! But, look, Mummy's here now!"

"But—but now Daddy's gone!"

Hermione's face went white. Ginny and Luna both froze and slowly, turned to look at Ron. He felt his entire body and his features stiffen. He hadn't wanted her to find out like this.

"Ron," said Hermione, her voice shaking. "Where's Harry?"

"G-Gone!" David sobbed into her shoulder.

"Ron," said Hermione again.

His tongue was very stiff and heavy; he couldn't seem to move it. Finally, his insides tearing apart as he thought of where Harry might be right now—and wondered if he was even alive or not—Ron Weasley managed to say:

"He's gone after Narcissa. I—I don't know if he's going to come back."

…

…

…

**TBC.**

…


End file.
